Tax refom on work cars

Every time I fill up my car with fuel I think GEEEE this is costing me so much money! Got me thinking, it is making me drive less and others too. So increasing fuel cost in some way is a WIN!!! After thinking about a benefit from increased cost of using the car I thought what other ways are people encouraged to give up the car and drive less……

A few months ago I remember hearing that there is a section in our taxations laws which mean that it actually works out better if your drive your car more. Well at least in regards to fringe benefits tax.

So under fringe benefit tax provisions you get taxed on benefit that you receive from work that is not actual ‘cash payments’. Say you receive a car, basically you will be taxed on the benefit to you off having this car. However the amount at which you are taxed is varied based on how much you drive the car. The issue that I see here is that the rate you get taxed on is considerably lower if you drive your car for more then 40,000 Km’s per year.

It’s a common thing for people to drive their car around to reach this 40,000 km’s. So basically were encouraging people to drive more when really we should be focusing legislation on driving less.

I sought answers and wanted to know with all the talk of Tax reform if this issue had been considered.

I wrote a letter to the Treasury office, from which I’m still waiting for a reply…..

Where do I plan this action to go? Well I hope that by me writing it will let the government know of my concerns. How else are they suppose to know if I don’t tell them? They might be able to explain to me the reasons then I can pass that knowledge onto others.

The benefit for me is if one day I hear of reform and I can think WOW I contributed to that…..

Also it will help the environment and reduce petrol consumption which is better for all of us!!!