If you receive any income from short term rental (the most common being Airbnb), you need to pay tax on this income. Expenses can be deducted from the income, but there are some pretty complex rules and calculations!
What we need
- If you have a property used solely for Airbnb purposes, and not used privately (or by family and friends), and rented at market rates, then great! Ideally, you’d have a bank feed going into your Xero file, but if not, we’ll need a summary of income and expenses from your bank statements.
- If your situation isn’t as outlined above, we’ll ask about your specific situation and ask for additional material. Rather than go through everything (and there’s a lot!), take a look at our Airbnb blog which has the reasoning and some of the calculations in the section ‘Income tax’.
Why we need it
Your net income from Airbnb operations needs to be included in your tax return. This is calculated by taking the income (including any ‘deemed income’) and deducting (a portion of) expenses associated with that income.