Tag: Tax

Airbnb tax arrangements

I wrote this sketch for Newsjack on the tax arrangements at Airbnb. They didn’t use it, so thought I’d pop it up here.

HOST:                   This week it emerged that Airbnb paid less than £200,000 in UK corporation tax last year, despite collecting over £600 million in rental payments for property owners. The digital economy’s great, isn’t it? You can use an Apple or Microsoft device to Google an Airbnb place and have an Amazon delivery waiting for you when you arrive. And all in the time it takes to close three schools and a hospital. But how would companies react if their customers tried using the same tactics?

FX:                              PHONE RINGS

JIM:                        Hello?

AIRBNB CALLER:   Good afternoon. I’m calling from Airbnb UK about the property you’ve registered with us. I believe you’re renting out 139a Blackfriars Road?

JIM:                        That’s right, great ratings too. We’re getting so many stars, the guy in the flat opposite has set up his own observatory! Though now I come to think about it, he might just be a pervert.

AIRBNB CALLER:   Well…quite. I’m ringing because we’re having some trouble with your account, and we’ve not been able to collect the Airbnb service charge. Are you able to settle up over the phone please?

JIM:                        Ah. Did you say you were calling from Airbnb UK?

AIRBNB CALLER:   That’s correct.

JIM:                        Well, there’s your problem. The flat is actually registered in Dublin.

AIRBNB CALLER:   I’m sorry? 139a Blackfriars Road. That’s in London, right?

JIM:                        Well yes and no. The address is a London address, but the flat is registered in Dublin for accounting purposes. Look, did you ever read the Narnia books as a kid?

AIRBNB CALLER:   No.

JIM:                        Exactly. It’s just like that. Outside the front door, it’s black cabs and red buses; inside it’s shamrocks and Guinness. Outside they’re playing Streets of London; inside it’s sweet, sweet Molly Malone.

AIRBNB CALLER:   This is ridiculous. I must ask you to please just settle your account.

JIM:                        I’m afraid I can only speak to Airbnb Ireland about this.

FX:                              PHONE CUTS OFF

FX:                              PHONE RINGS AGAIN

JIM:                        Hello?

AIRBNB CALLER:   [The same caller as before, doing a questionable Irish accent] Hello, this is Airbnb Ireland, calling to settle your account for flat 139a.

JIM:                        Ah. Well it’s not actually me you need to speak to.

AIRBNB CALLER:   [persisting with the accent] What? Aren’t you the registered owner?

JIM:                        Yes and no.

AIRBNB CALLER:   What?

JIM:                        My accountant recommended I split my personality into separate entities. Right now, you’re talking to cheeky, knockabout me, resident in London. But all my assets – including the flat – are controlled by my hard-headed businessman persona. He’s domiciled in Luxembourg.

AIRBNB CALLER:   [Giving up on the accent] Oh for Christ’s sake…

JIM:                        But none of us can do anything without consulting our controlling international playboy persona in the Cayman Islands. And good luck getting that guy off the beach at happy hour, know what I mean?

AIRBNB CALLER:   [Snapping] This is nonsense! You can’t pretend a building is in a different country or controlled by a different part of your own personality, just to avoid paying the money you owe!

JIM:                        [pause] Hmmm… Actually, that reminds me. While I’ve got you on the line, several of my personalities work for HMRC and as it happens, we’ve been trying to get in touch with someone at Airbnb for a while to discuss tax arrangem-… Hello? Hello?

FX:                              PHONE CUTS OFF

END

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Osborne ‘could be up to all manner of evil right now’

Political experts have warned that the Chancellor George Osborne could be using the post-Brexit chaos to get away with “some truly unspeakable shit.”

On Friday, the Chancellor quietly shelved his plan for a budget surplus by 2020, abandoning the entire basis for the last six years of punishing austerity.

When journalists barely seemed to notice, Mr Osborne announced plans to restore the country’s finances by making big businesses pay even less in corporation tax.

Political analyst Philbert Henkle fears that this will have emboldened the Chancellor.

“Everyone’s obsessed with the soap opera of Michael betraying Boris, and whether Angela will evict Jeremy.

“Everything else gets in under the radar. Who knows what horrors Osborne will try to get away with next?”

Rumours over the weekend suggested that forced labour camps have sprung up outside shattered former industrial towns, with unemployed people rounded up to work on Mr Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’.

Meanwhile, reports emerged of artists, writers and Guardian journalists being executed in an impromptu killing field in Shoreditch Park, overseen by a terrifying figure in a hi-vis jacket.

Another pundit, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said: “This is just the beginning.

“If the crisis continues into winter, expect Osborne to realise his long-held dream of heating the homes of Tory pensioners by burning disabled people for fuel.

“Watch him. Fear him. Watch his hands, not his face. And never look directly into his eyes. They’re just empty holes into the bleak void that lies behind.”

Mr Osborne was contacted for comment, but did not respond. Probably because he was dislocating his jaw in an attempt to swallow a newborn baby whole.

Posted on by jonnalism 0