ATO develops safe harbour for car fringe benefits

The Australian Tax Office has recently collaborated with industry representatives to develop a safe harbour for car fringe benefits. A safe harbour is a guideline that allows Australian businesses to make use of an efficient way to calculate tax where certain conditions are met. This particular safe harbour will simplify the approach for working out the business use percentage of car fringe benefits for fleets of 20 cars or more. The new approach reduces the recordkeeping burden for businesses and allows them to use an ‘average business use percentage’ when using the operating cost method. Businesses can access the safe harbour and use this new simplified approach if they have: a fleet of 20 or more ‘tool of trade’ cars, which are not part of salary packaging arrangements and cost less than the luxury car tax limit in the year..