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Income Tax Act 2007

Deductions - Motor vehicle expenditure

DE 10: Variance during logbook term

You could also call this:

“Changes in business use of your vehicle may require ending your logbook term early”

If you’re using a logbook to record how much you use your vehicle for business, you need to know about something called a logbook term. During this time, you keep track of how often you use your car for work. But if something changes, you might need to end your logbook term early.

Here’s what you need to watch out for: If in any month, you use your car for business a lot less than what your logbook shows, you may need to stop using that logbook. Specifically, if your business use drops by 20 percentage points or more compared to what’s in your logbook, and if the logbook no longer shows how much you typically use the car for work, you have to end your logbook term on the last day of that month.

For example, if your logbook shows you use your car 80% for business, but in one month you only use it 60% or less for business, you would need to end your logbook term and start a new one.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM1513876.

Topics:
Money and consumer rights > Taxes
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“When your vehicle logbook is considered inaccurate by the Commissioner”

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DE 11: Replacement vehicles, or

“How to handle a replacement vehicle for business use calculations”

Part D Deductions
Motor vehicle expenditure

DE 10Variance during logbook term

  1. If, in any month during a logbook term, the proportion of business use in that month is less by at least 20 percentage points than the proportion established by the logbook, and the proportion of business use recorded in the logbook no longer represents the average use of the motor vehicle for business purposes, the logbook term must end on the last day of that month.

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Notes
  • Section DE 10: amended (with effect on 1 April 2008), on (applying for the 2008–09 and later income years), by section 41(1) of the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Act 2010 (2010 No 130).