Who gets the End of year 1099?

[Regina360]

I'm hosting a house for an owner.  Can you confirm that from a tax standpoint, the income received from renters will go towards the owner's income and not my income. At the end of the year when a 1099 form is issued.  How will I know it will go to the owner and not me?  Is there anything I need to do or check to confirm that his income will not be charged to me on the 1099.  The money is deposited into my account and after taking my fees out, then I deposit the net proceeds into the owner's account.  

[Helen3]

Sorry I don’t know how tax affairs work in your country. @Regina360 

it would seem unusual that a co-host would  act as the main host and then send the owner a payment after deducting her fees it normally works the other way around - possibly this will impact on your tax return. 

Why not get an account on board and ask for a consultation so they can advise you on how you should be managing taxes for your co-host business.

[Regina360]

Thank you

[Lisa723]

@Regina360 Airbnb will report the income in the name of the listing admin, which appears to be you. You will need to then issue your own 1099 to the owner. Please discuss with your CPA!

[Regina360]

Hello Lisa, just to be clear, Air BNB will send me, the host, a 1099 for the revenues I receive from the renter on behalf of the property owner. I will send a 1099 to the property owner at the end of the year for the net proceeds after I take out my fee? As a host, did I set up my host profile correctly to account for renter revenues? It does not seem that the renter revenues should be considered income for me, it should be income for the property owner?

[Marcus237]

As others have stated, unless you intend to put in 90+ hours figuring out your taxes, you'll need to hire a CPA and issue the owner a 1099 from you, detailing what you paid them (as this can be deducted from your own income for tax purposes). I would be very careful that whatever method you're using to get the money to the owner leaves a verifiable paper trail. Meaning, no cash, ever.

[Susan151]

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@Marcus237 wrote:

As others have stated, unless you intend to put in 90+ hours figuring out your taxes, you'll need to hire a CPA

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Oh that is just silly. If you keep good records throughout the year, it certainly does not take 90+ hours to do taxes for an AirBNB, or any other business.

[Emily145]

Go to your Account page and then click the Payout Preferences link in the left nav. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll either see the name of the taxpayer they will issue the 1099 to, or a button you can press to add a taxpayer. You'll need to have the taxpayer complete a W-9, and if there is more than one taxpayer on the account, you will need to associate the owner with all of the payout methods if you want them to receive the primary 1099 from AirBnB.

Two notes about that - I don't know if assigning a taxpayer can be changed retroactively if you'd previously been listed as a taxpayer for all the reservations prior to adding the owner, or if it would only assign the income to them from the date you added them forward. You'd probably need to ask AirBnB for more information on that.

That said, with one listing you may not pass the threshold for them to actually file/send one. I easily surpassed the $20,000 threshold last year but had nowhere near the 200+ reservations. If you've only got one listing I suspect you aren't doing 200+ reservations in 365 days, in which case the tax returns you both file will be the only word on the subject to the IRS. Your tax return may have to claim some income initially, but everything you paid out to the owner or spent on her behalf with the proceeds for maintenance etc is claimed as your expenses, and you are only taxed on income minus expenses. If you have $100K of pass-through business income and $99K of business expenses that is taxed as $1K of income. The properties will be listed on the owner's tax returns where the funds you paid out to them will be categorized as rental income and they'll be able to deduct any expenses they paid out of pocket and depreciate the properties to offset some income, but on your tax return it's just pass-through business income and you don't have to fill out the much more complicated rental income portion of a tax return. Just be sure you're filing the expenses correctly so that the owner isn't getting credit for an expense that you paid directly without the money passing through her.

I am not a lawyer, just a fellow host, so please just take this as a starting point and not a final word.