CFIB Victory: New simplified auto expense rules to help you
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Thank you letter to Minister Ashfield
CFIB thanks Minister Ashfield for a new simplified logbook for motor vehicle expense provisions
In June 2010 a new simplified logbook for motor vehicle expense provisions was introduced to assist small and medium sized businesses and ease the tax compliance burden of small business owners.
CFIB had identified the requirement to keep a logbook as the most burdensome aspect of the motor vehicle tax provisions for its members. In response, the Canada Revenue Agency developed an alternative system for recording business travel with the aim to assist businesses in substantiating the business use of a motor vehicle that was used for business and personal reasons.
Businesses can choose to maintain a full logbook for one complete year to establish the business use of a vehicle in a base year. After one complete year of keeping a logbook (starting in 2009 or thereafter) to establish a base year, a three month sample logbook can be used to extrapolate business use for the entire year, providing the usage is within the same range (within 10%) of the results of the base year. Businesses will need to demonstrate that the use of the vehicle in the base year remains representative of its normal use. Thus, for both income tax and GST/HST purposes, the motor vehicle record keeping burden is being reduced.
For more information about the sample logbook policy, go to http://www.cra.gc.ca
New logbook for vehicle expense
Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue and Dan Kelly, Senior vice-president of legislative affairs.
