If you have ever received an income from letting your property with Airbnb, but have not notified HMRC of this income, you must do so now.
Airbnb have used HMRCS Connect Data Analysis to supply them with all details regarding anyone who have let their properties through Airbnb.
The data will allow HMRC to target any one who has received income from letting their property but have failed to notify them of this via Self Assessment.
The years in which Airbnb have notified HMRC are 2017-18 and 2018-19 as shown in Airbnb’s UK Accounts statement for the year 31st December 2019.
The deadline for HMRC to open an enquiry in to 2018-19 is 31st January 2021, or 15 months from when the 2018-19 Self Assessment was submitted.
However, discovery rules means that if HMRC find that the income was not declared or incorrectly declared, they do have the power to enquire in to income up to 20 years previous.
What can I do now?
You do have a number of options available to you, you are able to amend your 2018-19 Self Assessment up to 12 months after the submission, so if you are within that time, this is the easiest route to declaring the income for that year.
If you have undeclared income from prior years, or you are out of time to submit an amendment, you can notify HMRC under their Let Property Campaign Disclosure regime.
The advantage to using the Let Property Campaign is the penalties for failing to disclose this income will be greatly reduced, compared to just letting HMRC catch up with you. Interest will be charged on any tax not paid on time.
What do I need to declare?
If your only letting income from letting part of your property is below £7,500 then this is covered under the Rent-A-Room Relief, and so no tax would be charged, nor would there be an obligation to report it to HMRC, however, if you receive lettings income from more than one property and it is above £1,000 then you are required to report this.
If you let more than one property you can take advantage of the £1,000 Trading Annual Allowance instead of the Rent-A-Room relief.
In any event, its likely, that if you have received any income from letting part of or more than more property, HMRC will be in contact soon to enquire in to non disclosure of that income, so you must act now, to reduce any potential penalties you will receive.
If you are unsure what to do, or need someone to disclose your income for you, we are hear to help. We can make sure any undisclosed property income is declared as soon as possible and mitigate any potential penalties that will arise from not disclosing.