Know what income you need to declare and find out about the expenses you can and cannot claim, including situations where you are using your personal vehicle for ride-sharing and food and beverage delivery services.
Taxable income
Taxable income includes fares, delivery fees, tips and bonuses. You must declare these in your income tax return. This applies even if you're providing these services on a casual basis to supplement your income from another job or other business activities.
Because you are operating a business, if you earn income from these services you need to include this income and the deductions in your income tax return regardless of how much you earn.
Claiming business expenses
Expenses you incur while providing these services are deductible. Expenses can include costs related to maintaining or operating assets, such as a vehicle or mobile device.
Expenses can sometimes be both income-earning and for private use when providing these services. You can only claim a deduction for the income-earning part of the expense. You need to work out the amount of income-earning use and use this amount to work out how much of your expenses you can claim.
Some examples of expenses you may be able to claim, if they were incurred while providing these services, include:
- depreciation for assets you own, such as your vehicle (you need to be able to prove ownership)
- service fees or commission charged by the online marketplace
- fuel
- lease payments for a vehicle
- parking fees.
Working out the business part of an expense
When you claim the income-earning part of an expense as a deduction, you need to be able to show how you calculated the amount.
Common ways to show how you split expenses include:
- keeping diary entries of specific usage throughout the year
- claiming expenses from an itemised bill.
Calculating vehicle expenses
You will likely use your vehicle for these services and personal use, which means you need to split any vehicle expenses.
There are two methods to work out vehicle use:
- keeping a logbook
- keeping actual records.
When applying a method, you:
- can use different methods for different vehicles
- must keep appropriate records.
Expenses that can not be claimed
There are some expenses that can not be claimed because they're personal expenses or not allowed under the law. This includes things like:
- the cost of getting and maintaining a driver’s licence
- fines, for example speeding or parking fines
- personal or private expenses, such as meals you purchase while on a break, or the private use of a vehicle used for these activities.
Record keeping
As well as the usual records, the records you must keep include:
- statements showing your income from the online marketplaces you are using
- receipts of any expenses you want to claim deductions for
- logbooks.