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The Commissioner has published various FBT rates/amounts that will apply for the fringe benefit tax year commencing 1 April 2017. These are identified below: 1.            Exemption Threshold – s. 135C TD 2017/2 updates the exemption threshold for the new FBT year: ‘The exemption threshold for the fringe benefits tax (FBT) year commencing 1 April 2017 […]

Business Benchmarks – Are you maximising your potential to generate funds for NFP activities? NFPs that engage in commercial activities in order to raise funds to support their NFP activities can check the performance of their business activities against benchmark data assembled by the ATO. This may be a useful guide in indicating whether your […]

Question Employees are reimbursed for meals and 2 standard drinks as part of our general policy when dining while travelling on business trips involving an overnight stay. However, sometimes they consume more than 2 standard drinks. If we reimburse them for the drinks over and above the 2 standard drinks allowed, how is this to […]

Question We are considering the purchase of a new vehicle, where it is intended that the driver of the vehicle will have access for full business use, and will also have private use, allowing them to drive the vehicle strictly to and from their home to work. Assuming similar purchasing and operating costs, would it […]

Question Are there any fringe benefits implications for reimbursement of the cost of annual driver’s licence renewal fees? Does it depend on the type of driver’s licence?  For example, some employees are required to hold endorsed licences that allow them to drive heavy vehicles as part of their job role, in addition to their car licences. […]

Question We provide car fringe benefits to our staff and we require them to keep a log book so as we can have the option of using this method to value the benefit and use it if it comes in under the statutory formula value. Are we required to obtain closing odometer records as at […]

A car fringe benefit is provided if, at any time on a day, a car owned or leased by the employer (or associate or arranger) is used for a private purpose, or is available to the employee or associate for private use. A car will be taken to be available for private use (irrespective of […]

(1) Service Concession Arrangements: Grantors – draft AASB Standard The Australian Accounting Standards Board has issued a draft AASB standard Service Concession Arrangements: Grantors (Fatal-Flaw Review Version) (the Draft). The AASB seeks comments by 14 March 2017. The objective of the draft Standard is to prescribe the accounting for a service concession arrangement by a […]

Question: We utilise the operating cost method to determine our car fringe benefits liability. We are experiencing difficulties with obtaining valid entries for the ‘purpose of the journey’ requirement for the log book entries. We are considering the use of a detailed legend whereby employees could write a number in the purpose of the journey […]

Question: We provide a car to an employee to enable them to commute between home and work. During the day the same car is allocated to the pool car fleet and is used by several other employees purely for work related purposes during work hours. Is this car excluded from FBT reporting? Answer: A pooled […]