Claiming Car Expenses without a Logbook

Do you use your car for work but don’t have a logbook? Don’t stress! It may still be possible for you to claim work-related car expenses on your income tax return.

How does it work?

You can reduce your tax payable or increase your refund using the one-third of actual expense method. This method allows you to claim one-third for each car expense you incur. The eligible car expenses do not include capital costs such as the initial purchase of the car or improvements to it such as replacing an engine.

Please remember you can only claim these expenses when they are work related. I.e. used for work purposes to earn an income. You must keep written evidence for all of your expenses except fuel and oil which we can work out for you based on your odometer records.

What you need to know

Use this method if you used your car to drive more than 5,000 business kilometres in the tax year or if you only used the car for a proportion of the tax year, simply divide 365 by the number of days you owned the car and multiply that answer by your kilometres travelled. The result is the amount of kilometres you would have travelled in a full year. If it is more than 5,000 then you can still use this method.

If your answer is less than 5,000, or you did not travel more than 5,000 business kilometres in the year, you should use the cents per kilometre method or the logbook method.

If you need any clarification on using this method or any other aspects of travel related expenses, please contact us on info@ips.com.au