The road frequently traveled can be quite lucrative
JOHANNESBURG – If you get a travel allowance but don’t know how to claim, keep reading.
Registered tax practitioner, Bruce Austin, explains what travel claims entail. “All taxpayers are required to use a logbook when claiming against a travel allowance for the year of assessment. Travel expenses may only be claimed IF the person filing the return has either a code 3701 and/or code 3702 completed on their IRP5/IT3(a), stating that an amount has indeed been received as an allowance.”
A logbook is also to be kept during the course of the year and without the logbook, no direct claims may be made on the return. It’s not a catastrophe if taxpayers haven’t been vigilant in recording their mileage. SARS will be able to employ their “cost of scale table” to calculate the taxpayers claim.
Austin explains further, “If the taxpayer receives a travel allowance they may claim travel expenses based on the actual business kilometres travelled excluding kilometres travelled to and from work (deemed to be for private usage).”
The minimum information needed for the logbook is:
- The date/s on which each travel took place
- The destination/s to and from on each occasion
- The kilometres travelled
- The reason for the travel
When completing the “Travel Claim Against Allowance” section of the return form (TRVIF01), the full details of the vehicle need to be inserted. Further, when calculating the taxpayers’ claims the SARS assessor will require the following information:
- Total cost price or cash value of the vehicle
- Opening total kilometres (odometer reading)
- Start and end dates within the tax year
- Closing kilometres (odometer reading)
- Business kilometres travelled.
Without the aforementioned information, SARS will not be able to calculate the travel claim so the best way to retain this information would be by filling in a logbook on a daily basis. The SARS logbook can be found here.
Details: SARS Call Centre: 0800 00 7277
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