Connecting your Uber and Airtax accounts

Suitable for: Uber partners using the Uber prefill function as they complete their BAS

Tax Difficulty: Intermediate

Time to Read: 5-8 minutes

Tax Focus: BAS

Background

In order to achieve our goal of making tax simpler, we have developed an integration with a number of third parties to make one of the harder aspects of tax compliance much easier: how you source your data. One of these integrations is with Uber, where a customer can pre-fill some of their data made available to them via direct integration with Uber.

Instructions to connect Uber account with your Airtax account

Once you have signed up for an Airtax account, you can click on the Connect Accounts button. This can be accessed during the process of signing-up or from your BAS form itself. Once you click this button, follow the prompts and in a few steps, you’ll be set up.

Once your account is successfully connected, when completing a BAS lodgement form, all you’ll need to do is click the Uber icon which appears when you select the income field. Once your account is successfully connected, you will notice that some income and expense information will then appear on your BAS.

What is pulled through?

Our system pulls all your trip data for the relevant period. This comes through to Airtax including trip information (such as event time and ID) and financial information (such as fares, split fares, and tolls). When you pull your Uber income using this integration, we will pre-fill the gross income that Uber supplies to us, which is made up of:

• Passenger Fare
• Split Fare
• Tolls
• Uber service fee
• Potentially other localised amounts which are considered income (such as Booking fees)

**The gross income is considered income in your name from a tax perspective**

There may be some other amounts on your monthly statements that are not available through our Uber income integration. These include, but are not limited to:

• Tips and incentive payments
• Booking fees
• City fees
• Airport fees

We will also prefill some of the Uber expenses you can claim in the BAS form including:

• Tolls
• Uber service fee 
• The total of your Uber Service fees for the period is prefilled to the ‘rideshare fees’ category.

These expense amounts are prefilled with a 100% business use percentage, as there is no personal use for these expenses.

There may be other expenses on your monthly Uber statements which are claimable as an expense, however, they are not available via the integration. These could include but are not limited too:

• Booking Fees
• Airport  fees
• City fees

What to do if the numbers aren’t what you expect

It’s important to note that there may be variances in the numbers you expect to see. Listed below are some common explanations for these differences:

1. Bank account to Airtax differences: 

   It is important to note that the income amount we prefill is the gross income, as this is what needs to be reported for tax purposes. Given this is the gross earnings amount before the Uber fee and other charges are deducted, it will not match the amount of cash you have received in your bank from Uber. This is because the amount you receive in cash is after the Uber fee has been deducted. this is known as the net income amount. 

2.  Airtax to Uber Statement differences:

   We don’t produce the Uber statements, so it’s a little hard for us to confirm if there are any differences what they should be, but the following may account for some of the differences:

   • Time differences - e.g. our calculator works on AEST which may be different from the Uber Statements
   • Not including all data - your monthly statements may include data such as tips or incentives which we don’t pull through. Also, some amounts such as City Fees or Airport fees may not be included in your income, and would not be prefilled as an expense in ‘rideshare fees’. These amounts should also be included as part of your income.
3.  Other differences:

   Working over three years with thousands of different customers, we have encountered numerous different scenarios. Some of which can only be explained as a difference of opinion. In these situations, we encourage you to remember that the BAS form is self-declared, and you are responsible for the contents of your lodgement

What to do about differences

If you are using our standard service, then you are able to make changes to your BAS form as follows:

• Income changes - insert any additional income (such as city fees, airport fees, or tips/incentives) within the ‘Other income’ field.
• Expense changes - insert any additional expenses (such as city fees, airport fees, and booking fees) within the relevant category in the BAS form. You can do this by clicking on the orange receipt icon at the top right-hand corner of your car expense section, and following the prompts to increase your expense fields.

If you are using our Business Assist service, then we are happy to go through these questions with you on a call in more detail, to ensure you have peace of mind around what you are submitting and maximise your tax lodgement.

Note: as with all tax, your BAS lodgement is self-declared and you need to have the ability to substantiate any income or expenses you are submitting with receipts.