Hi fellow Ozb,
I generally travel for work at least a few times a week, so every year I claim about 4-5k km as car expense from my tax. It’s all good for many years and I keep an excel record for the km.
Now I am novated leasing a car but my wife will use it mostly. my understanding is that it is possible to do a novated lease for spouse as well. In that case can I still claim the car expense for my other car (both are in my name) as I still have to travel for work?
Thank you,
A
I generally travel for work at least a few times a week
Normally when you get quotes for novated leases they'll ask you whether there's any business/work use for the vehicle. This can reduce your post-tax contribution toward the lease.
The cents-per-km method is capped at 5000km. You should figure out which is better for you.
In that case can I still claim the car expense for my other car (both are in my name) as I still have to travel for work?
Depending on how aggressive you want to be with your taxes you could potentially double dip on this.
When I signed up the novated lease, I thought that it will replace the car expense claim. The NL runs into about 20-25k pre tax so that it is much better than 5000 km (about 4k pre tax). My NL is PHEV so all the cost are FBT free.
But then I came across this, looks like that it is legal to do a NL for your spouse to use, for whatever purpose she drive.
https://salpacaus.com.au/novated-lease-two-vehicles/
basically they say that you can NL more than one car, for you and for your family. I still have my old car in my name. So if my wife can drive my new NL then I think I could still do the tax return for the old one?
Company that sells you novated leases is telling you you can do whatever you want with novated leases? What could possibly go wrong?
Talk to an accountant. Because it sounds like you're just fishing for what you want to be true. But it's likely to be very specific to your case here as to the deduction or not.
They can. But often what they publish on their website should have some serious legal basis to it. It is not simply words from a sleazy saleperson.
I will ask the ATO directly in the end.
@amorphous2111: It does have some legal basis to it, but there's also some marketing fluff to it and has some specific requirements involved. They make it sound amazing then when you get into the paperwork you start to see the problems. It also doesn't mention EVs specifically.
Good move on asking the ATO, worth going to the definitive source.
You can novate as many cars as you like. However you can only claim the cars you actually own. Not the ones you novate (as you don’t own them)
Obviously subject to satisfying the claim rules