Greece’s Independent Revenues Authority AADE has deactivated a total of 17,612 short-term rentals listings on digital platforms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO and other relevant platforms. Reason for the deactivation is that according to data received from the electronic platforms, the short-term rentals owners had not received a Property Registry Number from the Tax Office, as required by law or they entered “fake” Registration Number in the electronic registration of the property.
Similar measures with heavy fines and even revocation of their operating license, if they do not comply, will also be imposed on managers of luxury villas -as was the case with the 200 villas found to be rented under the table on Mykonos – but also on hoteliers who will be identified not to declare the rents they collect from their customers -as in Kalambaka, where a hotel did not declare income of 1.3 million euros -, media report.
With regards to the short-term rental electronic platforms through which approximately 130,000 properties are rented in Greece, only from the cross-checks of the data received by the tax office from the companies that manage them, 73,000 property owners were identified as not having declared part of the rent they received last year and they were asked to declare an additional 102 million euros.
AADE is soon going to sign with the companies that manage the online short-term rental platforms a new updated Memorandum of Cooperation based on which the Tax Offices will now be informed in real time about illegal property owners by receiving all the details of the rentals from the platforms.
This practically means, that through cross-references, with the deductions and the declared incomes in the Short-term Rental Real Estate Registry of AADE, it will know which property owners and how much income they have concealed and will therefore proceed to impose fines and administrative sanctions.
Among the measures on the agenda for serious irregularities and tax violations is the “eviction” of illegal property owners from the online platforms, as already implemented for 17,612 property owners.
With this new collaboration, it will now be possible to limit or even eliminate tax evasion in the short-term rental market, where the taxable turnover jumped last year to 530 million euros from 62 million euros in 2018.
The Short term rentals have negatively affecting the burning issue of traditional rental properties which, in addition to being hard to find for Greeks, are now also very expensive with a minimum price of 400-500 euros per month for a simple two bedroom apartment in a city.