Does anyone here know of anyone who legitimately tax deducts their Ferrari for business purposes? No names, just info would be good.
How fast can you say "ATO" and "Audit"? I'm sure that some will be able to get away with this, but they are probably in the car business - I claimed a race car as deductible for years, but I was in the "trade" and was able to show that it helped produce income. Mentioned the same subject(F cars) to my beancounters a couple of years ago - it produced a lot of mirth and mumblings of "dont kick sleeping dogs" and "do you know how much audits really cost, even if you are AOK?". Nice low profile for me, thanks!
I did ask my accountant and he nearly fell off the chair laughing. As accountant are about as adventurous as a concrete block I thought others may have different opinions. I guess not.
How did you want to claim it as deductible? As in a personal vehicle you would novated lease, and pay FBT upon? It works on high value cars, but the kilometres would need to be super high (40k/yr+) to make it worth anything.... As a promotional vehicle? It could be possible if the vehicle was used in a marketing campaign and advertising/website/flyers were using the Ferrari image as an integral part of the sales engine of the business As a racing vehicle? It could work, however there would likely need to be some level of commercial sponsorship in place (i.e. not just your $$) to show that the operation is an attempt at commercial viability. (Disclaimer: The above is not specific tax advice, and should not be taken as thus... instead consider it the output of a "fragile little mind" TM Eric Cartman, South Park Movie)
Hypothetically - I would have assumed using the log book method. I.e. one logs all business related travel and all non business travel. One then is able to deduct a % business travel and claim depreciation to the Luxury car tax threshold and the same with the interest.
I asked my good friend/accountant about this 2-3 years ago. He said it can be done, but only part of a legitimate business. He said I could setup up an ABN run a "Wedding Hire Car business" using the Ferrari. Simple. Only trouble is, I actually had to have and prove $25K+ worth of income from this business. If I could, then I could right off interest on car repayments (not that I had any anyways), car service costs, rego, fuel etc...etc... I lost interest when he told me I have to have $25K income. I suggested we just "bodge up" some invoices to pretend to have an income coming in............which made him call security to have me thrown out of the building! Lol, nah.
Yup, more accountants in Long Bay than engineers, by far ...... The ATO guys might be "constable Plod" but they have lots of time to put together a case... and they are remarkably tenacious, guess it's their job.
Yes, there is no reason why you can't claim any car (including a Ferrari) as a tax deduction if you use it for business purposes, whether you are a business or employed by someone else. You can either use a log book to establish your proportion of business use or you can claim one third of business expense if you use the car for 5,000km worth of business use. Or you can claim up to 12% of the value of the car (up to the depreciation limit) again if you do 5.000km for business use in a year. For more info, see here. http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/pathway.asp?pc=001/002/013/008
Ok thanks for the link. With the logbook method there does not seem to be any minimum km's you need to travel. So if you only do 3000km's per annum and half that is business related you can claim 50%.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v684/GTRMagic/l_5ad7e4233c5c4a04aff3078c8cc04941.jpg Do you think Queen Street Smash could claim burnouts in the 360 as tax deductions?
Well, he DOES look after me when it comes to my investment properties. I still think I cant claim it for my line of work. Had a friend's Mum that used to delivery news paper using her car. She claimed EVERYTHING she could using that car. Log book filled out every night etc. She can do that, I cant. I cant claim my car that I drive to work and back everyday.......or can I?
Dont you have to rush back to work on call in the middle of the night, to repair some widget or other as a call out, that you get paid especially for? (Disclaimer... this is not tax advice.. just harmless shooting of the breeze...)
Pap's "Swift & Shift Couriers" like on SBS Running delivery service for Diamond Chopsticks... You Ring, We Bring (Disclaimer... no, this still isnt tax advice...)
I tell you what man!! There is a guy that does courier work for us 24/7. We call Les at ALL hours of the night to get us parts etc... He gets paid $150 for EVERY call out. Sometimes we call him up to 10 times a night to get parts for us. $1500 for a nights work, plus the usual call outs he gets throughout the day. He makes a lot of money, its crazy. He uses his own trayback small truck and each call out averages around 30 mins. Mount Isa is a small town and you can get from one side to the other within 10 mins.
Dont worry mate, I asked about doing it 2 years ago. I offered to do it on my days off, easy money for Pap. Was told it was a conflict of interest and it will NEVER happen. Same goes for any business I setup to try and sell to the Mines. Because I work there, it will never happen. Have a mate who works there, who's Mother and Father own an equipment hire business. Been in the business for the last 30+ years. They hire generators, scaffolding etc..etc... He is VERY VERY lucky he is allowed to use them to hire equipment for the Mines. They make a lot of money, of course. The Mines will pay anything to get what they want.
