Yesterday we reported that Eacham Curry, Director, Expedia/Stayz/HomeAway Corporate and Government Affairs had conducted an Australian Government Relations webinar for their corporate operators. We are now able to provide this link to the broadcast. Listeners can decide from Mr Curry intonation whether he is coaching…there are ways to circumvent government-imposed regulations and Taxation law. Listen: 39:50 minutes onwards. Mr Curry: “…There are ‘night caps’ that operate i

“It’s not too hard to rejig things in such a way to be (sic) actually be able to report that information so that it can be policed too a bit. Now if somebody wanted to try and get around it, well there’s always ways to do that, and there are always ways to get around paying taxation as well.” The ABC reported yesterday on the Locals locked out of the overheated Byron Bay housing market. One Resident, a father of four, faces the prospect of being evicted at the end of the mo

The headline in today’s Australian Financial Review – Airbnb supports ATO plan to share users’ income – is somewhat ironic. And misleading. Airbnb will “hand tax information about payments to its users directly to the ATO”. The trade off for its landlords paying tax to the ATO would be that Airbnb continues to circumvent paying its due corporate taxes here in Australia and, critically, there will be no further data sharing with Local or State Government authorities; the ide

A Melbourne Airbnb operator – let’s call him John – used social media yesterday to ask this question: “I rented residential properties then sublet them (e.g. three of them). I used a trust structure with Pty Ltd as the trustee. I used my personal name to rent the property, but use my business name to rent it out as a short stay. I am using booking.com - it requires me to use an EFTPOS machine or payment system to take the money from the renter’s credit card myself. And I now

This week we were able to provide the Real Estate & Property Division of NSW Fair Tradingand City of Sydney Council with details of an online webinar that boasted how one can “kick out tenants” and make a financial return of $15,000/month on Airbnb. And Expedia/Stayz will soon update their landlords on why governments are seeking to regulate short-term rentals, what the Expedia/Stayz regulatory model looks like, and how landlords can “get involved”. While problems with short