Just £200k corporation tax for Airbnb

AIRBNB paid less than £200,000 in UK corporation tax last year – despite collecting £657million in rent for property owners, it has been revealed.

But the international online firm, through which people rent properties short-term, claimed it had paid what is due. Airbnb said: “We follow the rules and pay all the tax we owe. The Airbnb model... boosted the UK economy by £3.46billion last year alone.”

Its commission goes through its Irish arm. It has two subsidiaries Britain. Airbnb Payments UK, which deals with payments between landlords and travellers from many countries made £960,000 in pre-tax profit last year and paid £188,000 corporation tax.

Airbnb UK made £463,000 in profits pre-tax but had no bill for the tax after giving staff tax-deductible benefits.

In recent months, Google, Facebook and Amazon have been criticised over the amount of UK tax they pay.