How to claim travel expenses?

[nesta]

Hello guys

I have a general question about travel expenses to be claimed against my assessable income.

Firstly, for my full-time job, I have to travel by own car from home to work like others every weekdays.

Some other weekdays, I worked at night right after day work as a contractor. Potentially, my total trip from day job to second job, even back home, all car expenses could be treated as business travel expenses and fully deductible.

What happen if I own an IP and required to check out the property, say owner-inspection to be done after work hours. Is that considered as business trip as well? Like from day job to 2nd activity which is carrying business/investment.

But I wonder, how ATO will look into such trips which I can't find the clear answer from ATO.

Can anyone help me out? :confused:

Thanks

Nesta

[geoffw]

Nesta

I'd suspect that, potentially, your trip to inspect IP would be deductible.

But I'd also suspect that the expense would be negligible. You would not be allowed to inspect a house more than about twice a year.

If the house was a long distance- say a flight away- you could claim the flight and accomodation as long as you did not also take holidays at the same time.

To be honest- when you're starting to have a property or two, you need to have an accountant who can help you to be proactive. It's not enough to ask if you can claim the trips you've already taken. You need to ask the best way to claim your car expenses. Legitimately and legally. A good accountant may be able to give you much better advice than a forum member.

Especially my own advice.

[nesta]

geoffw

Thanks.

Will do :)

[Kenster]

If you have own business, expenses can be claimed by way of travel and meal allowances (rather than actual expenses). When the claim is within the reasonable amount, substantiation of the claim in written evidence is not required.

http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?docid=TXD/TD200643/NAT/ATO/00001

Again, as Geoff mentioned above, please get professional advice.

[Mry]

That only works if you are an employee for employment related travel overnight. If you are self employed, you have to substantiate all expenses.

EDIT -
For rental properties, you can claim a deduction for travel to inspect property, make repairs, collect rent, do the banking and to prepare the property for tenants. You may not claim a deduction for travel to purchase the property, sell the property and to make improvements.

Of course this is all easy with the cents per km method. With a log book, its damn difficult to nail down.

As for the number of inspections, I had a chat with another accountant one day and he said that 4 trips a year when you have an agent are usually justifiable, but monthly is not going to cut it. If you managed the property yourself, you can claim much more.