Putting the squeeze on Airbnb

Tax bill threatens short-term rental platforms with fines if they fail to supply details of hosts’ revenues

The new tax bill tabled in Parliament by the Finance Ministry threatens online short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com with fines of between 30,000 and 100,000 euros if they fail to provide taxpayer data related to property rentals. The bill also includes tax cuts for all taxpayers and corporations.

The draft taxation law – submitted late on Tuesday to be voted into law next month – makes the framework for hosts who hide their rental revenues much stricter, as they will incur fines ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 euros, besides the fines for the platforms themselves.

Another change from the original text of the bill as it had been submitted for public consultation concerns the tax discount the government has promised for taxpayers carrying out building repairs and renovations. The original 40 percent tax discount concerned a maximum expenditure of 48,000 euros, but this has now been slashed to 16,000 euros.

The bill contains tax breaks adding up to 1.18 billion euros. Salary workers, pensioners, farmers, freelance professionals and corporations stand to pay lower taxes in 2020, as the tax rates are have been brought down significantly, as originally planned.

Finance Minister Christos Staikouras stated yesterday that the government is delivering on its promises to taxpayers and businesses and will decide within this week on the handouts for vulnerable social groups.

The property rates used for tax purposes, known as objective values, are also set to undergo changes: The government is planning an adjustment to the objective value calculation system, also taking into account construction quality.

Staikouras told Open Beyond TV that, in accordance with the creditors, the government will conduct a test in May 2020 regarding the objective values and zone rates. “Provisional data we have suggest that there may be significant fiscal leeway, which would mean more space than what we had thought before the elections for the reduction of ENFIA,” said the minister in reference to the Single Property Tax.