Many of our members use one or more vehicles in their business. If you want to claim motor vehicle expenses, make sure you keep the right records. The records you need to keep will depend on the method you choose to calculate your expense claim.
Before you can claim motor vehicle expenses, you need to select a method to calculate your claim so you know which records you need to keep. You can use different methods for different vehicles and can change methods from year to year.
You can use the ATO's Work Related Car Expense Calculator to work out your eligibility and calculate your claim under each method.
The two methods
From 1 July 2015, there are two methods you can use to calculate your motor vehicle expenses:
cents per kilometre method (restricted to claiming up to 5,000 business kilometres per car per year only)
Records required
Regardless of the method you use to calculate your motor vehicle expenses claim, you will need to keep:
ownership, or loan or lease details
details of how you calculated your claim.
More information
To find out more, watch the ATO's motor vehicle deductions webinar. Contact the ATO or speak to your tax accountant.
Please note that this blog post is not intended to provide any tax or accounting advice.