To see the latest updates on this topic, read our article: 2024 FBT Series: What you need to know about vehicles, electric vehicles and non-cars.
This article originally ran in The Tax Institute’s TaxVine newsletter on 10 March 2023.
You could be excused for thinking the first electric vehicles have just rolled off the production line, given the sudden flurry of associated tax law and the emergence of Australian Taxation Office (ATO) guidance to assist taxpayers in understanding the relevant taxation implications.
Rather, the truth lies in a combination of factors that has seen the rapid expansion in demand for electric vehicles — a focus on climate change and related sustainability measures, a shift in political and consumer behaviours and, recently, new government policy to fast-track community, government and business’ transition to electric vehicles.
ATO guidance in this area is critical. Why? — the laws developed last century did not contemplate electric vehicles — and FBT is arguably the area of law that throws up the greatest interpretive challenges.
The ATO has had to swiftly consider and formulate its guidance in this respect, and on 24 February this year, it released a Fact Sheet for Employers (ATO fact sheet). Its website indicates that a draft Practical Compliance Guideline (PCG) will follow this month to help taxpayers calculate electricity charging costs (please see What’s emerging? Draft Practical Compliance Guideline (PCG 2023/D1) provides calculation methodology for electric vehicle home charging costs released after this publication). Upon reflection, it would be interesting to understand how taxpayers with electric vehicles have managed to calculate and evidence such costs to date, given the inherent challenges.