The recent changes in the rules about Fringe Benefit Tax will mean that all vehicles that are involved in a novated lease as part of a salary package will need logbooks so the people with them pay a fair amount of fringe benefit tax.
Your company accountant will probably give you a brief run-down on how to fill out a logbook and give you a few basic pointers about what is and what isn’t considered personal use. However, we thought we’d give you a few case examples to help you wrap your head around the concepts.
Case 1: Stephanie works at a small retail store. She uses the car that is part of her salary package to drive to work, obviously. The trip to and from work is considered to be a personal trip (and considering that Stephanie drops her children off at school on the way to work in the morning, most of us would think that this is fair enough. This trip goes into the logbook as a personal trip, therefore. From time to time, Stephanie has to meet up with business contacts such as suppliers and wholesalers to talk over a new deal. Driving to meet these people counts as a business trip and Stephanie can certainly claim this amount back against tax. Occasionally, the boss asks Stephanie to deliver a purchase to a customer using her car. Again, this is considered to be a business cost. Usually, the journey home is a personal trip but if the boss has told Stephanie Hey, the person who put in this order lives over in your part of town could you drop it off to him on your way back home, then this would count as a business trip. Naturally, all the trips Stephanie makes in the weekend and doing the Mum’s taxi runs are personal trips.
Case 2: Gary works for a contracting crew. Usually, he drives in to work and parks his car (part of his salary package) up for the day at headquarters before piling into the work van with the rest of the crew to head out to the various sites the contracting work is done on.As you may have already figured out, the trip to HQ is a personal trip. However, if something crops up that means that Gary and a couple of workmates have to nip over to another site while the main work van goes elsewhere, and they have to take Gary’s car, that counts as a business trip. And if the foreman asks Gary to go and pick up a few edible treats from the supermarket on Friday afternoon for a special end-of-the-week feed, and Gary uses his car, this is a business trip, too, even though Gary picks up a few groceries for himself at the same time.
Case 3: Kathy is a social worker and counsellor who works with troubled teenagers. The organisation she’s associated with has an office, where she sometimes does her counselling work and where she touches base with the others in the organisation. As you probably have guessed, her trip to headquarters is a personal trip. However, she also goes out to quite a few high schools to meet with her counselees and has even been known to meet with them in the evenings. All these trips are business trips. If she decides to take a group of the teenagers she’s working with out to the movies as part of her work with them, the trip to the cinema is also a business trip.
Case 4: Jeff is a sales representative and drives a lot from client to client. The chances are that he won’t be getting a car as part of a salary package, as those who do lot of driving for business purposes don’t usually get a set of wheels under a novated lease.