{"id":34518,"date":"2019-03-22T16:07:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T23:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=34518"},"modified":"2019-03-25T09:31:02","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T16:31:02","slug":"money-saving-tips-for-airbnb-hosts-this-tax-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/features\/money-saving-tips-for-airbnb-hosts-this-tax-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Money-saving tips for Airbnb hosts this tax season"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Vladimir Solomyani on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

If you are a host who uses Airbnb or other short-term rental websites to rent out a spare room or your entire home, you might want to carefully check that your taxes are filed correctly this year.<\/p>\n

Safe to say, Airbnb has become the go-to service for consumers looking for an alternative to traditional hotels. At the same time, Airbnb allows hosts to earn additional income by short-term renting a house, apartment or spare room. But many hosts might not know that Airbnb earnings aren\u2019t simply \u201cfree money.\u201d In the U.S., hosts are required to pay taxes on short-term renting earnings \u2013 even if the host does not own the property.<\/p>\n

To help demystify the specific tax rules that apply to Airbnb hosts, Nolo, a resource for legal guides and advice for consumers and businesses, recently published Every Airbnb Host’s Tax Guide<\/a>. This first-of-its-kind tax guide is specifically written for short-term rental hosts by tax expert and attorney Stephen Fishman.<\/p>\n

If your home or room was rented out for less than 14 days, you\u2019re in luck, as any money you gained is completely tax-free. However, the majority of hosts rent rent out their places for longer than two weeks, so if that’s you, here are three of the most valuable takeaways for Airbnb hosts to save money this tax season, according to Fishman.<\/p>\n

How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects Airbnb hosts<\/h4>\n

The new tax law<\/a> allows you to deduct expenses without it counting toward the personal deduction limit of $10,000. In addition, hosts are also able to deduct rental expenses like fees paid to a rental agency and the cost of cleaning and repairs on the space you are renting out.<\/p>\n

What if you don’t report your short-term income to the IRS?<\/h4>\n

As you might suspect, there are consequences if you don\u2019t report your income accurately, which Fishman warns can leave you with hefty fines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don’t report your short-term rental income and the IRS discovers it, you’ll have to pay taxes on the income, plus interest and penalties,\u201d says Fishman. \u201cYou could have to pay a negligence penalty of 20% of what you underpaid. This can really add up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Airbnb that is taxed<\/h4>\n

Lastly, don\u2019t forget that the new tax laws apply to all short-term rental services, such as VRBO and HomeAway \u2013 not just Airbnb.<\/p>\n

You can get 20% off Every Airbnb Host’s Tax Guide<\/a> from the Nolo website by adding this code at checkout: bbanb20<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are a host who uses Airbnb or other short-term rental websites to rent out a spare room or your entire home, you might want to carefully check that your taxes are filed correctly this year. Safe to say, Airbnb has become the go-to service for consumers looking for an alternative to traditional hotels. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":34519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1436,1041],"class_list":["post-34518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-tax","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34520,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34518\/revisions\/34520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}