The Independent Authority for Public Revenues (AADE) on Sunday revealed that it has tracked down some 20,000 undeclared short-term rental properties on the Airbnb platform , which had not been added by their owners to the AADE electronic register.
The authority has also found 130 property owners that had concealed income from Airbnb rentals.
The properties were discovered through a special “web-scraping” programme, which located properties on the electronic platforms that had no Property Registration Number.
The head of the authority Georgios Pitsilis has ordered that a request be sent to Airbnb, asking it to hand over the details of all owners with properties on the platform that lack a registration number.
In the next few days, authorities will also crosscheck whether the same properties are on other popular booking platforms, such as Booking.com, HomeAway and others.
So far, 70,000 short-term rental properties have been recorded on the AADE register.
Owners that fail to declare their property risking a 5,000-euro fine.
AADE will also soon have data on payments made to Airbnb clients with Greek tax registration numbers via the platform using credit cards or wire transfers, which it will crosscheck against declarations of income, with those found to have hidden income liable for the corresponding fines.
A total of 130 tax payers have been tracked down in this way so far.
Meanwhile, the authority is working closely with tax authorities in other EU countries to exchange know-how and information on rental properties leased via platforms.
Greek tax authorities activated the platform for registrations for revenues from short-term rentals via online platforms like Airbnb, Home Away and others in August 2018.
