In a sharing economy buyers (customers) and sellers (providers) are connected through a facilitator. This facilitator can be an agent, a website or an app. With the modern trend of a sharing economy there are numerous websites and apps facilitating this.
If you are a seller/provider in this case and you use one or more facilitator to share/provide your services or goods then you must make your self aware that income tax, the goods and services tax (GST) or an other tax may apply to your earnings.
Here is a list taken from ATO which provide some popular sharing economy services:
- Renting out a room or a whole house or unit for a short-time basis, for example Airbnb and Stayz.
- Providing ‘ride-sourcing’ services for a fare (considered to be taxi travel for GST purposes) such as Uber, SheSafe, Shebah and GoCatch.
- Providing personal services. This includes creative or professional services like graphic design, creating websites. It also includes odd jobs like deliveries and furniture assembly. Some examples are Airtasker, Mad Paws and Deliveroo.
- Renting out a car parking space, for example Parkhound and Spacer.
It s important that if you are using such a facility then you declare the earning properly when you are lodging a tax return. United Business Services can help you with this. Feel free to contact us to discuss further. You can contact us by calling +61 2 9534 8744, sending us a message on facebook or by visiting our contact us page.
The video above which shows a very good illustration of a sharing economy has been taken from the ATO website.