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Claiming petrol on your tax return and fuel tax concessions for small businesses

Date posted: Friday, April 3, 2015

Enter a car, truck, vehicle or any other kind of heavy equipment into the equation, and your tax can get complicated – whether you’re a small business or an individual at end of the financial year.

Luckily, we can shed some light on any confusion you want to get out of the way before tax time rolls in again.

For individuals

You can claim travel expenses – including your car’s petrol and public transport costs – as long as they’re directly connected with your work. However you can’t claim travel between home and work, as this is considered a private expense.

When you use your own car in the course of performing your job however, there are quite a few instances where claiming is all a-go, including:

• carrying bulky tools or equipment
• attending conferences or meetings
• delivering items or collecting supplies
• traveling between two separate places of employment (for example, when you have a second job)
• travelling from your home to an alternative workplace and then to your normal workplace or directly home (for example, if you travel to a client’s premises)
• perform itinerant work.

For businesses

As a business, there’s a federal tax placed on all fuel you purchase (not nice). To help you out, the government has in place a fuel tax credit scheme that allows you to claim back that tax (nice).

Usually included as part of your usual Business Activity Statement (BAS) – much the same way other taxes like GST are claimed – the fuel tax credit scheme applies to most fuel used in the course of carrying on trade, including driving machinery and running plant, equipment and heavy vehicles.

To be eligible, your business needs to be registered for GST, registered separately again for fuel tax credits, undertaking an eligible activity. It also needs to meet several environmental criteria – for example, emission standards for heavy diesel vehicles.

At Pakenham Taxation + Accounting we’re experts in all the details of personal and business taxation. Make this end-of-financial year easier for yourself and contact our team for further questions about what you can and can’t claim on tax.

Maximising Deductions for Non-SBE Taxpayers: Accelerating Expenditure

Date posted: Sunday, June 23, 2013

So what is accelerated expenditure?

Accelearting expenditure is where a business taxpayer brings forward the expenditure on regular, on-going deductible items. Business taxpayers are generally entitled to deductions on an incurred basis. Because of this there is generally no requirment for the expense to be paid by June 30. As long as the expnse has genuinely been incurred, it will generally be deductible.

Below is a list of items, which are possible for accelerated expenditure:

• Depreciating assets costing $100 or less can be written off in the year of purchase.
• Depreciating assets costing less than $1,000. These can be allocated to a low value  pool and depreciate at 18.75% (which is half of the full rate)
• Repairs to office premises, equipment, cars or other business items
• Consumables and spare parts
• Client gifts
• Donations
• Advertising
• Fringe benefits
• Superannuation

Again we completely understand this may still be a little confusing. So if you have any question give Pakenham Taxation + Accounting a call on (03) 5940 1836 and make a book with one of our experts today.

End of Financial Year: Prepayment Strategies For Non-SBE

Date posted: Sunday, June 9, 2013

We’re now in the month of June, which can only mean one thing… the end of the financial year. For many businesses and individuals this can be a very confusing time with questions like; what can I claim on tax. And, how can my business maximise deductions? At Pakenham Taxation + Accounting we like to help reduce these stresses, so over the next few weeks we’re going to post some tips, tricks and information all relating to the end of the financial year.

To kick things off we’re going to look at how non-SBE (non-small business entities) taxpayers can maximise deductions, firstly through prepayment strategies.

So what does a prepayment strategy include?
A prepayment strategy includes any part of an expense prepayment relating to the period up to the 30th June and is generally deductible in full.

In addition, non-SBE taxpayers may generally claim the following prepayments in full:

• Expenditure under $1,000
• Salary and wages
• Expenditure required to be incurred under law.

But just wait, before you go jumping the gun you should know that prepayments can be a little confusing, so before you commit to making a payment please feel free to call the Pakenham Taxation + Accounting team to help you out with all your queries. There’s no silly questions when it comes to tax.