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Record keeping

Last updated 21 March 2017

For your tax records, you must keep for 5 years your:

  • calculations
  • worksheets
  • declarations
  • elections
  • supporting details.

You do not need to submit these with your return. You must also keep for 5 years any relevant employee declarations and records of fringe benefits provided by associates.

You must make your elections and declarations and obtain all employee declarations by 21 May 2017 unless we have allowed you to lodge it later or you have a later due date.

Record-keeping exemption arrangements

The record-keeping exemption arrangements allow certain employers to choose not to keep certain records for an FBT year if they lodge their FBT return for that year. Instead, we work out your FBT liability for that FBT year using the total taxable value of fringe benefits you provided in an earlier base year when you kept FBT records.

You can elect to use the record-keeping exemption arrangements if all of the following apply for all years between your base year and the year ending 31 March 2017:

  • You are not a government body or income tax exempt at any time during the year ending 31 March 2017.
  • We have not issued you a notice requiring you to resume record keeping.
  • You were in business for the whole of the base year.
  • You kept FBT records in the base year.
  • You lodged your FBT return for the base year by its due date.
  • The aggregate fringe benefits amount (total of taxable values of all fringe benefits) in the base year did not exceed the exemption threshold for that base year (listed below).
  • You have elected that the record-keeping exemption arrangements apply in all years from the base year to the year ending 31 March 2017.
  • The aggregate fringe benefits amount for the benefits provided in the year ending 31 March 2017 does not exceed the amount in the base year by more than 20%, unless the difference is $100 or less.

See also:

Exemption thresholds

Year

Amount

2013

$7,642

2014

$7,779

2015

$7,965

2016

$8,164

2017

$8,286

If you use the record-keeping exemption arrangements for the year ending 31 March 2017, you must write at:

  • item 15 the fringe benefits taxable amount you provided in the base year
  • item 23 the taxable value of each category of fringe benefit you provided during the base year.

QC51524