Simplified Auto Log Requirements Confirmed By Government

At long last, an announcement has been made by The Honourable Keith Ashfield confirming a new simplified logbook requirement has been introduced for expenses incurred for motor vehicle use. The change is part of the strategy announced in the 2008 Federal Budget for assisting small and medium sized businesses with tax compliance.

As indicated in the Federal Budget documents, one of the intentions of the initiative was to reduce the recordkeeping burden for taxpayers who claim automobile expenses. As was announced at that time, "To reduce the record-keeping burden and allow small business owners more time to devote to growing their firms, Budget 2008 proposes that maintaining a logbook during a sample period of time, that is representative of how the motor vehicle is used, be sufficient to support motor vehicle expense and taxable benefit calculations.

The revised administrative policy that has been introduced allows businesses to maintain a logbook for an entire year, starting in 2009, in order to establish the use of a motor vehicle for business purposes. The logbook should be maintained for the entire year in order to establish a base year. After the base year has been established, a logbook can be kept by the taxpayer for a continuous three month period, which can then be used to calculate the business use for the entire year. The sample logbook would require the vehicle's business use to be within a 10% range of the base year's calculated annual business use.

Care should be taken in the year that the vehicle is purchased or leased as there are limitations based on the type of vehicle purchased and amounts that can be claimed for tax purposes.