– By Marc Sibbald –
The session on FBT at the 2016 Australasia Fleet Conference and Exhibition was presented by Simon Ellis, senior manager tax at KMPG. It was very informative and as expected Ellis covered the basics of FBT and reminded the audience of the standard calculations.
There were main messages from the session:
- Every organisation could potentially pay less FBT if you are prepared to keep good records.
- Technology can help you keep better records and justify the expense of implementation.
In the presentation Ellis explained that FBT is all about private use of vehicles by employees. And the tax office provides very clear definitions of what is considered private use so there’s no grey area.
He described the Statutory Method as ‘expensive’ and explained that the Log Book Method is ‘simpler’ if you can get your employees to complete a logbook and can track all your vehicle expenses.
This is when technology came into the discussion. The message that Fleet Auto News took away from the presentation is that an electronic logbook would pay for itself within the first FBT year with reduced FBT and less internal administration.
And it could also be used to reduce FBT on car parking. Because it’s not something that fleet managers would normally worry about I think most of the audience switched off when Ellis started to discuss car parking FBT.
Though by the end of the presentation I think everyone was doing the sums on the two tips Ellis provided to reduce, and reclaim, this expense and, how they can use it to make themselves relevant to their organisation.
