For tax records, you must keep the following for five years:
- calculations
- worksheets
- declarations
- elections
- supporting details.
You do not need to submit these with your return. Any relevant employee declarations and records of fringe benefits provided by associates must also be kept for five years. Your records must generally be kept for five years from the lodgment of your FBT return, or the due date for lodgment of your return if you do not have to lodge.
You must make your elections and declarations and obtain all employee declarations by 21 May 2019 unless we have allowed you to lodge your FBT return later or you have a later due date.
Record-keeping exemption arrangements
The record-keeping exemption arrangements allow certain employers to choose not to keep certain records for an FBT year if they lodge their FBT return for that year. Instead, we work out your FBT liability for that FBT year using the total taxable value of fringe benefits you provided in an earlier base year when you kept FBT records.
The exemption threshold is $8,552 for the year ending 31 March 2019.
You can elect to use the record-keeping exemption arrangements if all of the following apply:
- You are not a government body or income tax exempt body at any time during the year ending 31 March 2019.
- We have not issued you a notice requiring you to resume record keeping in the year ending 31 March 2018.
- You have established a base year in an earlier year and your FBT liability for every year after that base year was calculated using your aggregate fringe benefits amount for that earlier year.
- The aggregate fringe benefits amount for the benefits provided in the year ending 31 March 2019 does not exceed the amount in the base year by more than 20%, unless the difference is $100 or less.
A year will be a base year if of all the following apply:
- You were in business for the whole of that year.
- You lodged your FBT return for that year by the due date.
- You have kept and retained FBT records for that year.
- Your aggregate fringe benefits amount (total of taxable values of all fringe benefits) in that year did not exceed the exemption threshold for that FBT year.
- Your FBT liability for that year was worked out from the aggregate fringe benefits amount for that year and not an earlier base year.
If you had elected to use the record-keeping exemption arrangements in an earlier year, but ceased to carry on business operations during the year ending 31 March 2019, you can still use the arrangement. Your FBT liability will be determined from a proportion of the aggregate fringe benefits amount in your base year provided all of the above conditions have been satisfied.
If you use the record-keeping exemption arrangements for the year ending 31 March 2019, you must write at:
- item 15, the fringe benefits taxable amount you provided in the base year
- item 23, the taxable value of each category of fringe benefit you provided during the base year.
See also: