This has fallen out of the news to a large degree because AirBNB (in particular) has split taxes and fees out, but other places -- here's looking at you Snowshoe in WV -- have not.

I'm talking about the wildly deceptive practice of putting out a price (on the web, usually) and then at the last screen just before you pay there's a "Taxes and Fees" single line, not broken out at all -- which could be 50% or more of the actual price!

What's actually in "taxes and fees"?  Good question.  Sales tax is of course charged in virtually all jurisdictions and that's an actual tax.  Some areas have separate "hotel" or "occupancy" taxes specifically leveled on short-term rental housing (e.g. hotel rooms, AirBNBs, etc.) in addition to or as a replacement for sales tax, and a few resort areas have specific tourism development taxes that are specific to certain types of lodging (usually geographically based.)

But then there are fees, which are not taxes.

If some business wants to charge these then that's fine but conflating a legally-mandated charge with a choice is a per-se deceptive practice since it leads one to believe that such is "mandatory" in some form or fashion and acts to conceal the magnitude of each, especially for out-of-state travelers who likely don't know what the state and local tax structure looks like.

The FTC has banned this sort of thing incrementally but short-term lodging and other tourism-related businesses have evaded enforcement, leading them to issue a new, tougher rule forcing the top-line advertised price to include all such fees.

Snowshoe appears to not have gotten the memo because they just tried this on me three days ago.  I closed the browser rather than complete the booking and due to questionable conditions for my intended trip (skiing) I bagged the whole thing rather than make alternative arrangements and deal with driving to and from the mountain daily.

Perhaps they'd like to get sued by the FTC or even better -- be put out of business -- on top of it; this sort of garbage needs to come with criminal penalties and prison sentences, not just threats and fines.  I won't put up with this garbage anywhere -- I never have, never will, and if getting around it is unreasonable under the circumstances then I don't patronize that place at all.