Landlords who use online services such as Airbnb to rent rooms, flats and houses, will benefit from a new £1,000 tax-free allowance.
While they will still have to declare their earnings, they can deduct the allowance first.
George Osborne made the announcement in yesterday’s Budget.
He said this was to encourage ‘digital’ entrepreneurs’. The same tax break is to extend from next month to users who trade products on eBay.
However, Airbnb users are by no means all ordinary home owners or flat renters with a belief in the sharing economy and a room to spare for a day or a week. There is evidence that a significant number are professional landlords.
Data from Inside Airbnb suggest that over half of all London listings are complete houses or apartments, rather than rooms, and of those whole-home listings, 41% are from hosts with more than one property on the site – suggesting they are buy-to-let landlords using Airbnb rather than letting agents.
Also, more than three-quarters of whole-home listings on Airbnb are available to rent for more than three months, again suggesting that a number of larger landlords are bypassing agents.
While a £1,000 tax break could be insignificant to larger landlords they could take the view that, as the saying goes, every little helps.
I looked at this headline and thought ‘what the hell is Airbnb? Is it bed and breakfast on airplanes?’ Well of course I suspect it’s basically a disguised advert for the company called Airbnb – now I’m really annoyed I even looked it up!
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My brother owns and lives in a flat in Salford Quays. He lets it out on weekends via Airbnb. The income from a fully let month of weekends is enough to pay his mortgage. He told me that there was a professional landlord couple trying to buy a second flat in his block and that they let there properties as holiday lets through Airbnb. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
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I wonder if Ebay and Airbnb pay as little tax as Apple and Google.
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