Rental income reporting interface

Rental income reporting Vero API interface is intended to be used by companies, who provide their customers a software or an application to manage their rental affairs. The company can submit the rental income information directly for the Finnish Tax Administration on behalf of their customers, the landlords using this API. Rental income is taxable income for the landlords, and it is mandatory to report the income in their personal taxation. The interface can be integrated as part of a software and reporting of the information can be combined with company’s other business activities.

The interface is not intended to be used by companies that offer rental activities themselves as a business activity. This refers to rental activities, where the rental objects are owned by the company and the revenues are the company's own turnover. This turnover must be declared in the company's own tax return on the corporate income tax return.

Read more about taxation of rental income from here: Rental income - vero.fi

Benefits of the interface for the user of the interface and for the end-customer:

User of the interface:

• Can ease the administrative burden for the end-customer because the rental income information is reported from the software directly to Tax Administration on behalf of the end-customer.
• Can improve the service they providing to be more diverse and comprehensive. The service can provide better value for the end-customer with the interface integration.
• Use of the interface is combined with other functions in the software, for example handling of rental income, expenses and tax affairs. The end-customer doesn’t have to use multiple different services separately.
• Can use the interface integration to market their own service better.

End-customer:

• Reporting taxation information and handling of tax affairs is made easier. Administration of rental accounting and reporting of rental income to Tax Administration is combined in the same service. This method saves time and effort for the end-customer. The customer doesn’t have to log into Omavero separately to report rental income.
• When the Tax Administration receives real-time information on the rental income received by the customer via the interface, it can propose to the customer to increase or decrease the prepayment taxes. This means that the customer pays the right amount of tax already during the tax year and does not have to pay any residual tax or receive a refund. If the customer wants to change the amount of prepayment tax to match with the Tax Administration's proposal, he or she can accept the proposal in Omavero. The customer can also apply for a change in the prepayment tax amount as it has been possible so far. The rental income is also submitted for the customer's tax return, even if the customer does not accept the proposals for the prepayment tax or tax cards.

Use cases

Please note that the use cases in this text are only examples how to the interface can be beneficial in different business activities. The user of the interface must determine themself the nature of the rental activity and the usage of the interface with help of the Tax Administration’s instructions. Read more about different taxable rental activity from here: What counts as rental income? - vero.fi

A landlord with many rental properties:
A user of the interface is a company that provides an application that is used to manage rental activities. The users of the application, the landlords, are able to add the rental properties they own to the application and keep track of the income, expenses and various receipts and vouchers related to the rental properties in the application. The user can also use the application to calculate the amount of taxable rental income, i.e., the net rental income, for each property. The application has an integration build for the Rental Income Reporting API interface, which allows the landlord to report rental income data directly to the Tax Administration. The use of the interface is built as part of the other functions of the application. For each user, the application automatically collects all their taxable rental income data for the month for the interface call and sends it to the Tax Administration after the end of each month.

The use of the interface is beneficial for the company because it helps them to improve their services in to be more comprehensive. A user of the application, i.e., the end-customer, could be, for example, a property investor who may have several apartment blocks, properties, short term rentals and holiday homes that he rents on a regular basis. The management of rental properties and the filing of tax returns requires a great deal of effort and time on the part of the end-customer. For the end-customer, the rental income data is automatically reported to the Tax Administration on his/her behalf, and he/she no longer must report the data to Omavero himself/herself, which eases his/her administrative burden and also helps him/her to pay the right amount of tax on his/her rental activities.

A platform service for holiday rentals:
The user of the interface is a company that provides a service which is an application or web-based platform service that is used for managing the rental of holiday homes, such as chalets. The users of the service, i.e., individuals and landlords, can use the application as a marketplace where they can offer rental properties for other customers to rent. From the platform service, individuals or companies looking for holiday homes for short-term rentals can book a suitable rental property for themselves. Landlords also use the app to market their holiday homes, receive orders and keep records of income and expenditure on rental properties.

The application has an integration build for the Rental Income Reporting API interface, through which landlords can report the rental income data of their rental properties directly to the Tax Administration. The use of the interface is as part of the other functions of the application. Renting of the holiday homes can be a fulltime job or a part time job for the end-customer. The application combines all the functions related to rental activities, including tax reporting, making it useful and easy to use for end-users.

The use of the interface is beneficial for the company as it helps the company to improve its services to be more comprehensive. Use of the interface integration in the holiday rental platform offers better value for the end-customers for their needs for the services.

Platform service for occasional rental activities:
The user of the interface is a company that provides a platform service that runs via a website or an application. The platform service is used as a marketplace where individual persons who are engaged in occasional rental activities, can advertise products or services for rent. The users of the service are individuals whose main livelihood is not rental activities and they do not operate as an actual business. The users may own some property, for example: a boat, caravan, or storage facility which they use only occasionally themselves. The users may offer these rental items on the platform service to other private individuals for rent for a cost of fee.

Even if the rental activity is occasional, users still must pay tax from the renting fees from customers. These fees are considered as rental income on taxation. An API interface for reporting rental income data is integrated into the application, allowing the landlord to report rental income data directly to the Tax Administration. The use of the interface is built as part of the other functions of the application. The application combines all functions related to the occasional rental activity, including tax reporting, making it useful and easy to use for end-users.

The use of the interface is beneficial for the company as it helps the company to improve its services to be more comprehensive. The platform service provided by the company better covers the needs of the customer with the interface integration.