Suitable for: Anyone who is a rideshare driver
Tax Difficulty: Beginner
Airtax Experience: First time users
Time to read: 3-5 minutes
We get lots of customers asking us to give them an overview of how to undertake a BAS. The goal of this article is to show you how an example Airtax rideshare user would complete their expenses section on their BAS, given their circumstances. This example profile contains some features that are relevant for a wide range of business activities, and most are specific to rideshare drivers.
When you come to complete your BAS on Airtax, every expense entry you make and business use percentage you apply impacts your overall GST position for the period. The effect of this can range from a couple of dollars, to over $100, which is why it is so important to use an accurate and consistent approach as you work through your BAS.
The ultimate objective here is for you to lodge with an accurate representation of your business' income and expenses, and a lot of the time the expense section causes the most challenges for our customers.
Our Airtax BAS form has been developed in a collaboration between our PwC Accountants and our customers. A lot of our customers say the BAS form is so simple to use, however, we recognise for a first time user it can be a bit complicated.
Breaking down the form
Firstly, the user needs to sign-up for Airtax and then start a BAS for the relevant period. Please see this article if you are unclear on what BAS periods relate to you. Once you have completed sign-up, then you can start a BAS from your dashboard here and clicking the BAS plus-sign (highlighted below).
The BAS form lists a number of expense fields for you to use - which is really useful - however, it is how you use them which matters!
Below is a background of an example Airtax user's rideshare business for a given BAS quarter:
- They are a rideshare driver, and use their car sometimes for personal use.
- They have determined from their logbook that the business use percentage that relates to the running of their car is 70%.
- The Airtax Uber prefill function has loaded tolls and rideshare fee amounts for them based on the trips they have made with Uber, and has also set a business use percentage of 100% for these expenses (as there is no personal use attributable for these expenses when there is an Uber passenger in the car).
- They also drive with Didi and Ola, and have followed the instructions here to include this information on their BAS.
- $500 (inc. GST) worth of fuel was incurred for the period - this is the total amount of personal + business purpose fuel.
- They paid their annual car insurance bill during this BAS period, totaling $600.
- A $250 service was completed during this period, which has been listed in the ‘Maintenance’ field.
- They paid for $50 worth of car supplies during the period, including air fresheners and mints, for which they determined 90% of this expense was incurred for a business use.
- Total car wash charges for the period was $50.
- They have a phone internet bill of $99 for 3 months. They estimate that it is used 60% of the time for the purposes of rideshare driving, and 40% for a personal use.
- In the third month of the BAS period, the user purchased a new car for $25,000 (inc. GST) using a loan arranged through a bank.
Based on the above information, this is how this user would complete their Airtax BAS: This is what their BAS form looks like once they have entered their background information.
- Notice how the business use percentage of the car has been applied to those expenses that relate to the running of the car, including fuel, car insurance, maintenance and cleaning. This makes sense, as all of these expenses relate to the running of the car and can therefore be tracked by the outcome of the vehicle logbook.
- This is how the user should enter their phone internet bill, given the 60% business use percentage they have determined.
Accounting for the car purchase is a more difficult concept. If you would like to read more about the BAS treatment of a car purchase, check out this help centre article.
What you’ve learned:
- How to start a BAS through Airtax
- What the various expense fields mean, and how you can use them to ensure you’re claiming what you deserve.
- How the result of your logbook can be applied to your car expenses
- What the Uber prefilled expense amounts represent
Where you can get more help:
- Feel free to search for other topics in the Help Centre
- If interested, consider using our Business Assist service to discuss with a qualified PwC Tax Specialist about your BAS (recommended for first time users)