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For a few weeks now, the "housing crisis" has been making headlines, particularly with respect to the shortage of available housing in large urban centers, including Montreal. One of the explanations regularly invoked for this shortage has to do with short-term rentals of the Airbnb type. However, a contrario, many have discussed the slowdown in this type of short-term rentals as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this context, Revenu Québec published, on May 20, 2021, a first report on its inspection activities as related to tourist accommodations. A press release from the Agency is available here. In reviewing same, we note the significant increases in "non-compliant inspections", "offences treated under penal proceedings", convictions and fines imposed, as between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 periods.

As stated within this release, there are several obligations for taxpayers who provide short-term lodging, including:

• reporting their income;
• registering for the lodging tax;
• registering for GST and QST, as required.

The Agency has created a web page to summarize these obligations, available here.

If you are in the short-term rental business and you wish to validate that you meet all your obligations in this regard, do not hesitate to contact a member of Spiegel Sohmer’ tax department.