The Income Tax Act No.58 of 1962 allows taxpayers who receive a
travel allowance to claim a deduction for the use of their private
vehicles for business purposes. It is important to note that travel
between your home and place of work cannot be claimed and is
regarded as private travel.
The South African Revenue Service reserves the right to audit and query the
content or information recorded by the taxpayer in any logbook.
Calculating a travel deduction if you are in receipt of a travel allowance
It is now compulsory to keep a logbook of all your travel in which you
record your business kilometres if you want to claim a travel
deduction. The logbook must contain the following minimum
information relating to your business travel:
•
Date of travel
•
Kilometres travelled
•
Travel details (where to and reason for the trip)
Once you have taken down these readings and worked out your total
travel for the year, you can start calculating your travel deduction.
In order to claim a deduction, the first step is to record your vehicle’s
odometer reading on 1 March each year (the first day of the tax year
for individuals), and again on the last day of February the following
year (the last day of the tax year for individuals). The difference
between the closing and opening readings will give you your total
kilometres travelled for the year.
Without these readings, you cannot claim a tax deduction!
First you need to calculate what portion of the total kilometres
travelled was for business use.
Note: Where you used more than one vehicle in the tax year, a separate
logbook must be kept for each vehicle that was used.
Without a logbook, you will not be able to claim a travel
deduction.
You are now ready to calculate the amount of your claim.
As a taxpayer you have two choices:
You can calculate your claim based on the table of costs supplied
by SARS each year. You will find the cost tables which apply to the
tax year from 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2021 on the next page
of this logbook. You need not have kept an accurate record of all
your expenses – simply use the costs linked to the value of your
vehicle.
Alternatively, you can calculate your claim based on the actual
costs. You will have to have kept an accurate record of all your
expenses during the year, including fuel, maintenance, lease and
insurance costs.
Please note that you must retain your logbook for a period of at least
five years as you may be required to submit it to SARS for verification of
your claim. SARS accepts electronic logbooks as an acceptable record.
