Tax Office Orders Airbnb To Hand Over Records

Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA) has welcomed Airbnb's acknowledgement today that the platform is under legal notice by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to hand over significant and comprehensive information concerning property hosting activity as part of the ATO's data matching program.

TAA CEO Michael Johnson said today's development follows years of advocacy efforts by the TAA and the Australian Hotels Association to shine a light on what has notoriously been a grey area of the economy.

"The ATO program requires sharing economy rental platforms to share data such as name, address and telephone number, banking details, payment methods, gross rental income, nights booked and comprehensive property activities," Mr Johnson said. (Full details regarding the data to be provided can be found here.)

"This will significantly improve transparency and increase equity between traditional tax paying accommodation providers and the largely unregulated short stay accommodation sector. This is an important development that will result in greater accountability of online accommodation platforms and short stay accommodation providers."

"Property owners who have correctly assessed and declared their income tax, GST and otherobligations or earnings from these activities and complied with Australian Tax laws, should have nothing to be concerned about."

"As the unregulated accommodation sector has grown, traditional accommodation providers have suffered as a result of unequitable taxation arrangements whilst taxpayers have missed out on a substantial revenue stream."

The ATO has announced that it will;

• Collect data to identify individuals that have or may be engaged in providing accommodation services through an online platform during the 2016-17 to 2019-20 financial years.
• Acquire details of all payments made by online accommodation platforms to accommodation providers, including payments made by international entities for the 2016-17 to 2019-20 financial years.

The Commonwealth Government previously estimated that a result of these new activities by the ATO, the records of approximately 190,000 individuals across Australia will be obtained, underscoring the significance of this policy and the revenue that may be derived as a result.