Are you renting out part of your house through Airbnb? Please note: in the future you may have to pay a much larger part of the rental income to the tax authorities. This is the result of a decision by the Supreme Court. The ruling may put a bomb under the temporary rental of rooms or gazebos.
To earn some extra money, a Dutch couple rented out their garden house for three weeks in 2015. They received 3,564 euros from the holidaymakers for this. But the income was not reported properly, according to the tax inspector. According to the inspector, the rental income had to be counted as income from work and home and is taxed accordingly in box 1.
A long legal procedure followed. Two judges, first the court and later the court, sided with the couple. Both ruled that the rental income was not taxed in box 1, partly because it concerned temporary rental.
But the Supreme Court approved the tax authorities yesterday. The couple must include the income from the rental of the garden shed in box 1 in their tax return under income from work and home. That means that they have to pay tax on seventy percent of the income.
Earning money with a home
The fact that a summerhouse is only temporarily rented out as part of the home, according to the highest tax court, does not change the fact that money is earned from the owner-occupied home. The previous judgments of the other judges have been quashed.
The Tax and Customs Administration has announced that it is pleased with the decision. They now have a stronger case to tax Airbnb rental of, for example, parts of houses.
