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Getting tax deductions on travel expenses

Transcript:

Ross Forrester: Hey, everyone. I’m Ross, back again, here again.

Sarah Lee: And I’m Sarah.

Ross Forrester: Today we’re going to talk about getting a tax deduction for your traveling claim. One of the biggest concepts in tax law is that you’ve got to have receipts to prove your expenses that you incur. When you’re traveling, that’s really hard because you’re getting out of the taxi, you need a receipt, you’re buying some food at the bar, some chips for dinner. You need receipts for that, and it’s quite cumbersome while you’re traveling to try and retain all these receipts, and more often than not, you tend to lose them. So the government has this concept of a travel allowance.

Sarah Lee: A travel allowance is really interesting because it’s tax-free to the employee. It’s also tax deductible to the employer and you don’t have to keep receipts.

Ross Forrester: Yeah, so what that means is that it depends on the level of wages of the employee. So if you’ve got a junior employee and you’re traveling in Sydney, you will get a travel allowance payment of about $320. That’ll cover your food, your accommodation, and your incidentals. If you’re a higher-paid employee earning about $220,000, you’ll get a travel allowance claim of about $452.

Ross Forrester: There’s a few tests and things that you need to do to make sure you qualify for a travel allowance, but it’s actually a really good option and allows you to get the tax deduction without the need to keep all your receipts, so you can actually order that beer at the pub and not worry about anything silly like keeping your receipts. Thanks, guys. I’ll see you later.

Sarah Lee: See you.

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