Fringe benefits tax - a guide for employers

• This document has changed over time. View its history.

Chapter 13 - Board fringe benefits

Relying on this Guide We are committed to providing you with accurate, consistent and clear information to help you understand your rights and entitlements and your obligations. If you follow our information and it turns out to be incorrect, or it is misleading and you make a mistake as a result, we will take that into account when determining what action, if any, we should take. Some of the information on this Guide applies to a specific financial year. This is clearly marked. Make sure you have the information for the right year before making decisions based on that information.

13.1 What is a board fringe benefit

Providing a meal to an employee is a board fringe benefit if the employee is entitled to have accommodation provided and all of the following conditions are satisfied:

• there is an entitlement under an industrial award to be provided with at least two meals a day, or under an employment arrangement at least two meals a day are ordinarily provided
• the meal is supplied by you (the employer) – if you are a company, the meal may be supplied by a related company in a wholly-owned group
• the meal is cooked or prepared on your (or a related company's) premises or on a worksite or place adjacent to a worksite
• the meal is supplied on your premises (or the worksite) or on the premises of a related company.

Some common examples of meals that may be board fringe benefits are:

• meals provided in a dining facility located on a remote construction site, oil rig or ship
• meals provided to a live-in housekeeper or to a resident teacher in a boarding school.

Meals supplied to family members living with an employee who is entitled to meals under the employment agreement or award are also treated as board meals and are valued under these rules.

13.2 Taxable value

The taxable value of a board fringe benefit is $2 per meal per person ($1 per person if under the age of 12). You reduce this by any amount the employee pays for the meal. Incidental refreshments such as morning and afternoon teas supplied as part of board are exempt from FBT.

Where you have an agreement in place with your employee, which requires them to make a contribution towards their board meals and their accommodation, you may apportion that contribution on any reasonable basis.

Example

An employee is provided with accommodation and meals at their place of work. The employee contributes $182 a week ($26 a day) towards their accommodation and meals as per their remuneration agreement. The employer apportions the contribution as follows: $6 per day as a contribution towards the three meals provided each day. In effect this will reduce the taxable value of each board fringe benefit to nil. $20 a day will be the employee's contribution towards their accommodation.

GST does not affect the taxable value of board fringe benefits so these benefits are always 'grossed up' at the type 2 rate. For more on GST and FBT, refer to Chapter 1 .

Grossing up means increasing the taxable value of benefits you provide to reflect the gross salary employees would have to earn at the highest marginal tax rate (including Medicare levy) to buy the benefits after paying tax.

13.3 Meals provided by others

Where you contract an employee's services to another person who provides the employee with board meals on their premises, the meals are board fringe benefits and you still have the FBT liability.

13.4 Meals that are not board fringe benefits

The following meals are not board fringe benefits:

• meals provided at a party, reception or other social function
• meals provided in a dining facility open to the public, except for board meals provided to employees of a restaurant, motel, hotel and so on
• meals provided in a facility principally used by a particular employee.

Such meals may be property fringe benefits or, if provided by a tax-exempt body, tax-exempt body entertainment fringe benefits.

13.5 Reduction in taxable value where expenditure would have been deductible to the employee

The taxable value of the board fringe benefit is reduced to nil if both of the following apply:

• you provide a board fringe benefit to an employee
• they would have been entitled to an income tax deduction if they had paid for the meal.

13.6 Exempt board benefits

Board meals provided to an employee who is employed in a primary production business located in a remote area are exempt benefits (refer to section  20.7 ).

Latest update

January 2020

Section	Changes and updates
Throughout	Updated to provide consistency between chapters and style in accordance with corporate requirements

Details of previous updates are available through the versions linked to in the table below.

© AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

You are free to copy, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute this material as you wish (but not in any way that suggests the ATO or the Commonwealth endorses you or any of your services or products).

ATO references:
NO Fringe benefits tax - a guide for employers