How to get the taxman to pay for your petrol

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With the cost of petrol these days, anything you can do to reduce the cost of motoring is welcome.

Significantly, if you use your own car to help you earn taxable income (as part of your job, for instance), you can claim a tax deduction for any costs which you incur, including the cost of petrol but also additional costs such as insurance, servicing, repairs and so on.

There are two ways you can make this claim:

how to get the taxman to pay for your petrol fuel ato car costs tax

  • Cents per kilometre. You can claim a flat rate of 66c per kilometre for every business kilometre you cover. You'll need to keep a diary of all work-related journeys so you can work out how many kilometres you've travelled for work. This method can only be used for claims up to 5000km per vehicle.Tip: if you change your car part way through the year, you can claim 5000km for both vehicles.

Generally, if you travel more than 5000km per year in a particular vehicle, you'll need to use the logbook method (below).

  • Logbook. This is a way of claiming the actual expenses you've incurred in running your vehicle for work, such as fuel, servicing, insurance and depreciation. Deduction claims usually work out larger using the logbook method but the record-keeping requirements are more onerous. For a start, you'll need to keep a logbook - but only for a representative 12-week period. In the logbook, you'll exhaustively record all your journeys - business and private - so that at the end of the logbook period, you can work out the proportion of business use for your vehicle. That proportion can then be applied to all your car expenses over the year (and over the next four years too since, once you've done it, the logbook is good for five years). Then, you'll need to keep records, such as receipts or invoices, for everything you spend on your motor vehicle, so you can claim the appropriate business percentage of that expense when you come to complete your tax return. So, don't throw away your petrol receipts!

So, that's how to make a claim. But when are you entitled to make a claim?

Driving as part of your job

If you're required to use your car for work, you are entitled to a deduction for the costs which you incur whilst at work.

This specifically excludes the cost of the commute from home to work, except in very limited circumstances, since this is regarded as private expenditure.

The only exception to that rule is if you are required by your employer to carry bulky tools in your vehicle which cannot be safely secured at work.

Take great care on that point - the ATO looks very closely at such claims and disallows lots of them.

Typical situations where you might be able to claim petrol costs whilst at work include:

  • Travelling between workplace sites during the working day
  • Travelling directly from one job to another where you have a second job (provided you don't go home first)
  • Travelling to a business related meeting with a client, supplier or prospect
  • Travelling to a work-related course.

Driving as part of your business

If you run your own business, you can claim a deduction for the cost of using your car in the business. The rules are very similar to those that apply if you use your car as part of your employment. The significant difference is that if you run your business from home, your work-related journeys will be regarded as starting from home.

Getting your tax return done

If you use a tax agent to prepare your tax return, as well as claiming the cost of getting the tax return prepared, you can also make a claim for any travel expenses you incur in getting to and from your tax agent, including petrol if you drive to see your agent.

Finally

No matter whether you're driving for work, to visit an investment property or to get your tax done, you need to use either the cents per kilometre method or the logbook method. Whichever method you choose needs to be applied to all your tax deductible car use and if you choose the cents per kilometre method, the 5000km limit applies to all tax deductible use.

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Mark Chapman is director of tax communications at H&R Block, Australia's largest firm of tax accountants, and is a regular contributor to Money. Mark is a Chartered Accountant, CPA and Chartered Tax Adviser and holds a Masters of Tax Law from the University of New South Wales. Previously, he was a tax adviser for over 20 years, specialising in individual and small business tax, in both the UK and Australia. As well as operating his own private practice, Mark spent seven years as a Senior Director with the Australian Taxation Office. He is the author of Life and Taxes: A Look at Life Through Tax.
Comments
Teagan Eden-Street
April 24, 2017 10.52pm

Great read! very useful information.

Ron Raj
November 5, 2020 7.31pm

Investment property travel has now been disallowed:

https://www.ato.gov.au/general...

Money magazine
Verified
November 6, 2020 8.54am

Hi Ron,

You're correct - you can no longer claim deductions for travelling to your investment property.

This change came in from July 1, 2017. As you can see, the above article was published prior to that, on April 5, 2017.

- Money team