From BZ/dpa
According to the Berlin Senate, it subsequently collected around 2.2 million euros in taxes from landlords on the Airbnb housing platform.
This was possible based on tax data from the years 2012 to 2014, the Senate Department for Finance announced on Saturday on request. The “Tagesspiegel” had previously reported.
According to the Senate, the Hamburg tax investigation department received the data in June 2020. “Part of this data concerned taxpayers in Berlin.”
Accordingly, more than 1,500 tax cases in the capital were checked. “According to the current state of knowledge, in 886 of these cases income was not, not fully or subsequently declared.”
The Berlin Senate is not only struggling with Airbnb for tax data. Again and again, the districts impose fines when providers offer unauthorized holiday apartments on the platform.
Because if you want to rent out your apartment as a holiday apartment, you need a permit in Berlin since 2014. The providers then receive a registration number, which they must make public in the offer.
From the perspective of the districts, this has not worked sufficiently for a long time. They accused online portals such as Airbnb of publishing the offers without specifying the number.
The Berlin administrative court therefore decided last year that Airbnb must hand over the data of private landlords to the authorities if there is an initial suspicion of misuse.