You can only claim work-related motor expenses you incurred as an employee for a car you:
- Own, or
- Lease or hire under a hire-purchase agreement. You don’t need to be the registered owner, but you must be able to show there is a private arrangement that made you the owner or lessee of the car.
You must keep a logbook that shows your work related trips for a continuous period of at least 12 weeks, including odometer records.
More specifically, your logbook must:
- Cover at least 12 continuous weeks, and be broadly representative of your travel
- Include the reason and purpose, as well as the destination of every work-related journey, the odometer reading at the start and end of each journey, and the total kilometres travelled on the journey
- Include odometer readings for the start and end of the logbook period and the total kilometres travelled during that period
Each entry in your logbook must be made at the end of the journey, or as soon as possible afterwards.
Trips you cannot include as work related are discussed here.
Your logbook is valid for 5 years. However, if your circumstances change – for example, if you change jobs or move to a new house – and the logbook is no longer representative of your work-related use, you are required to complete a new 12 week logbook.
In each of the 4 years following the first year you need to keep:
- Odometer readings for the start and end of the period you owned the car during the tax year
- Your work-related kilometres and use percentage for the tax year based on the logbook.
You must also keep receipts or other records of your actual car expenses.
Car expenses include:
- Fuel and oil expenses
- Repairs, servicing, maintenance and cleaning expenses
- Registration (rego)
- Insurance
- Interest on a car loan
- Lease payments
- Decline in the value of the car
See here for a discussion of how to work out the decline in the value of your car.
The following are not car expenses:
- The purchase price of the car
- Repayments of the principal element of a car loan
- Modifications, alterations, or improvements to the car
- Parking and tolls
If your car is electric, instead of keeping receipts for fuel and oil, you must keep:
- Receipts for electricity from commercial charging stations
- Evidence that shows you incur electricity costs to charge your car at home, such as an electricity bill and how you calculated the direct cost of charging your car.
If your car is a hybrid, you must keep all the following:
- Receipts for your fuel and oil
- Receipts for commercial charging stations
- Evidence that shows you incur electricity costs to charge your car at home, such as an electricity bill and how you calculated the direct cost of charging your car.
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