Airbnb made £150m but paid tax of £200,000

AIRBNB paid less than £200,000 in UK taxes last year. It reported profits of £938,000 on revenues of £150million in 2016, paying £187,579 in tax.

Earlier this year the firm, which lets people rent their homes to guests for a fee, said its UK-based hosts made £657million in the year to July. Airbnb says it takes a 3 per cent cut of cash made through bookings on its website.

It processes payments made by hosts and their guests through Airbnb Payments UK. However the commission Airbnb collects for itself is booked through a separate company based in Ireland which has lower corporation tax than the UK.

Airbnb said it helped boost the UK economy by £3.46billion and paid all the taxes it was legally required to.

However, the firm’s tax affairs are likely to spark further questions about big technology companies that operate across international borders.

Last week it emerged social networking giant Facebook paid just £5.1million in UK tax on profits of £58.4million.

Meanwhile Uber, the taxi app firm currently in a dispute with regulators in London, paid £551,000 on profits of £3million – on revenues of £37million.