The records you need to keep and how you work out your claim will depend on whether the vehicle you use is considered to be a car and whether you own or lease it. Your vehicle is considered not be a car if it is any of the following:
a utility, truck or panel van with a carrying capacity of one tonne or more
a vehicle with a carrying capacity of nine or more passengers
a motorcycle.
If your vehicle is not a car or is a car that you don’t own or lease, see Vehicles other than cars.
Methods of working out your car expenses
The deduction you can claim must be worked out using one of four methods. The records you must keep will depend on:
the estimated amount of business kilometres you travelled for the income year
The following two methods are those most commonly used by concreters.
The logbook method
To work out your deduction using the logbook method, you must keep all of the following:
a logbook
odometer records
receipts and other written evidence for all your car expenses. You can use your odometer readings to estimate your fuel and oil costs instead of keeping receipts.
The cents per kilometre method
When working out your deduction using the cents per kilometre method:
you don't need receipts or other written evidence but we may ask you to show how you worked out your estimate of business kilometres. For example
by using a diary of work-related travel
by basing your costs on a regular pattern of travel
you can only claim up to the first 5,000 business kilometres you travel.
Car expenses are claimed at D1 Work-related car expenses on your tax return.
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