Controversy
In accordance with the provisions of Italian law, professional hostThose whose income is primarily based on the residence business pay a direct withholding tax equal to the flat rate coupon of 21% or the owner’s marginal income tax rate.
Law in force since 2017 obliges platforms to act blocking agent Towards non-professional hosts, owners of apartments and houses, for whom, on the other hand, rental housing is not the main source of income and who represent the majority of subjects working with Airbnb.
In these cases the company should be banned 21% transaction and pay withholding tax to the state. But since the rule came into force, the US group has contested the claims of the Italian tax authorities and appealed to the TAR.
trial
In Italy, Airbnb does not have a tax representative acting as a withholding agent and, as the group was willing to underline in its response to the revenue agency, Court of Justice of the European Union In December last year it was established that the obligation of a foreign company to designate a tax representative in our country should be considered a “disproportionate restriction on the freedom to provide services”, contrary to European law.
However, the Court established in the same ruling that Italian law can ask platforms to collect rental information and data, and enforce it. Withholding tax provided by the national tax regime.
Before involving the supranational body, the matter had reached the Council of State, which held a general hearing on the matter and which should be expressed shortly. Airbnb has announced that, until the decision of the highest Italian administrative body, it will continue to comply with the provisions of the European standards and will therefore not comply with the revenue agency’s requests.
The disputed figure of 500 million euros is the most ever requested from an Internet company by Italian tax authorities, following an 817 million fine offered to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, by early 2023.
Meanwhile, the Milan prosecutor’s office and the Guardia di Finanza are also probing the failure to pay taxes due on short-term rentals, rebuilding another front from the investigation allegedly related to hosts who, in many cases, they will not declare any income Despite the fact that they were owners of houses rented with Airbnb (here we talked about the government’s hold on Airbnb in the tourism bill).