Two things decide whether a driver's return holds together: the records behind the claims, and knowing which set of rules applies to you. The records matter most for the overnight-meal claim, which carries the biggest dollars and the closest attention. And the status question, employee or owner-driver, sits underneath everything, because the two are taxed on different footings.
What the records have to show
To claim a work expense you need evidence you actually incurred it. The evidence, usually a receipt, needs to name the supplier, the amount, what the purchase was, the date you paid and the date the document was made out, and be in English where you spent the money in Australia. Once your total work-related claims pass $300, written evidence is required for every one of them, not only the part above the line. For anything used partly for private reasons, such as your phone, hold a note of how the work-use share was worked out.
Better to record each cost at the moment you pay it on the road than to reassemble twelve months of it the night you lodge.
The overnight-meal record, done properly
Overnight meals get their own attention because they are the claim most often tested. Even when you rely on the reasonable amounts and are not keeping a receipt for every meal, you still have to be able to show a few things.
- That you were genuinely away from home overnight for work. Not just paid an allowance, actually away.
- That you actually spent the money. The reasonable amount is a ceiling, not an entitlement.
- How you worked the claim out. A trail from your spending to the figure on the return.
- That any travel allowance was declared as income. The allowance goes on the return whether or not you spent it all.
The work diary you already keep for fatigue management is accepted as evidence of when your meal breaks fell, and bank or card records together with a representative sample of receipts show a real spending pattern. Accommodation and showers, if you pay for them, always need full receipts, because the meal shortcut does not extend to them.
The costs that never make the return
A few things feel bound up with the job but the ATO treats as private, and it helps to name them plainly so they do not creep onto a return.
- Fines and penalties. Speeding, parking, overloading and logbook or fatigue breaches are never deductible, work trip or not.
- Your ordinary driver's licence. Private whether you're getting it or renewing it.
- Everyday clothing. Stays private, whatever the job needs of you.
- Music, audiobooks and podcast devices. Private, even when they keep you alert on a long haul, and so are seat covers for the truck.
- Meals on a day trip. Private where you did not sleep away.
None of these turns deductible because the job made it feel necessary.
Employee, or an owner-driver on an ABN?
This whole cluster is written for the employee driver, the one who is paid wages, has tax withheld and receives an income statement with any allowances on it.
If you invoice for your work, own or lease the prime mover, and claim fuel tax credits, then you are running a business, and the employee rules set out across these chapters are not written for you. Draw a wage to drive another operator's truck and they are.
The bottom line
Keep a record for every claim, and give the overnight-meal claim the fuller record it needs: proof you were away, that you spent the money, and that the allowance was declared. Keep the fines, the ordinary licence, the everyday clothes and the cab entertainment off the return entirely. And settle whether you are an employee or a business before you start, because that answer changes every rule beneath it.
See what your driving work costs come to at tax time.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.