Airbnb has teamed up with tax preparation firm H&R; Block in an effort to ensure Australians that offer accommodation on the sharing website meet their tax obligations.
Under the agreement, H&R; Block will offer discounted tax services to Airbnb hosts as well as provide specialist tax tips on its website and free educational material.
"Many Airbnb hosts simply don't realise they have to declare the income they earn through Airbnb on their tax returns," Mark Chapman, director of tax communications at H&R; Block Australia, told the Australian Financial Review.
Apart from declaring their income, Mr Chapman said there were a number of complex areas for Airbnb hosts to navigate through such as what deductions can be claimed and the potential further down the line for hosts to lose some of their capital gains exemptions when it came time to sell their property.
For those not declaring income earned through Airbnb or other sharing economy services like Uber, Mr Chapman said the Australian Tax Office was becoming "increasingly vigilant".
"They are now looking quite hard at people earning income from sites like Airbnb and Uber. They have the power to go to properties to check them out and they can also match tax returns to public listings on Airbnb." he said.
Earlier this month, the ATO added information on its website under the heading "The sharing economy and tax" in a further sign of its efforts to monitor income being earned through Airbnb and others.
The partnership with H&R; Block comes a month after Airbnb struck a loyalty program with Qantas allowing users to earn frequent flyer points when they book through the portal, a move which enraged the hotel lobby, which claims Airbnb has fostered an unregulated and untaxed commercial accommodation market.
It also comes as Australia emerges as one of Airbnb's fastest growing markets globally with Sydney among the firm's 10 biggest markets.
Research by University of Melbourne found that the number of monthly bookings on Airbnb has rocketed by 600 percent in the last 2 years.
A recent NSW parliamentary inquiry into short-term holiday letting, led by Liberal MP Mark Coure, recommended commercial Airbnb hosts face only "light regulation".
Internationally, there have been stronger moves to curb the growth of Airbnb, which now has more than two million listings with New York imposing hefty fines on those who use the service.
Airbnb has long argued that most of its hosts are people earning a bit of extra income by renting out a spare room, but figures compiled by Inside Airbnb, a website which monitors Airbnb, found that over 60 per cent of listings are for whole properties and a quarter of hosts have multiple listings.
"Airbnb hosts are overwhelmingly everyday Australians who want to pay their fair share of tax, and we want to help," said Sam McDonagh, Airbnb Australia country manager.
