#28406

I’m glad you put the word “share” in inverted commas. The so-called sharing economy is a distraction from what’s really going on.

Sharing your residence would involve taking in visitors and giving them a room and some meals in the house or flat in which you live. That’s what has been called, since time immemorial, B&B. I note that the bnb in Airbnb originated from bed & breakfast, but these days it has little to do with that traditional model.

Most Airbnb hosts don’t do B&B. They mostly do short term rentals of self-contained self-catering accommodation. Mostly, it’s got nothing in common with B&B, and nothing at all is “shared”.

Same with Uber. Shared transport is an agreement to share a car when the driver needs to go to the destination anyway, and having extra passengers either contributes to costs or allows the use of restricted traffic lanes, or both. Uber isn’t ride-sharing, it’s a taxi service, which is a profit-making business, on which Uber and their drivers should pay tax like the rest of us. Do they pay tax? How many Airbnb proprietors pay tax?