Details for the Payroll Officer
How do I recover the monthly lease payments?
Every lease payment is fully recoverable from the Employee’s salary. For every lease a Payroll Advice is provided to the Payroll Contact. Payment of the lease cost is monthly, but the Payroll Advice can be displayed in weekly, fortnightly or monthly figures.
The Payroll Advice breaks the payment up into three amounts. A pre-tax salary sacrifice, a post-tax employee contribution and a GST input tax credit. On rare occasions the post-tax employee contribution is replaced by a pre-tax FBT amount.
These monthly lease payments and payroll deductions remain constant over the duration of the novation unless there is a significant change in the actual running costs compared with what was budgeted. If the running costs are estimated to go over what was originally budgeted, the employee will be required to modify their lease to recalculate vehicle running budgets. A revised Payroll Advice will be issued upon modification to commence new lease deductions.
At the end of the lease the running cost budgets are reconciled. How do I adjust an Employee’s pay to accommodate any reconciliation surplus or deficit?
This is quite a simple procedure but it does vary depending on the FBT treatment. For leases that use the:
STATUTORY METHOD AND HAVE A:
- Reconciliation Surplus - debit the GST to GST Payable and add the remaining amount to the Employee’s taxable income
- Reconciliation Deficit - credit GST to GST Payable and recover the remaining amount from the Employee’s taxable income
OPERATING COST METHOD AND HAVE A:
- Reconciliation Surplus - based on the business use percentage split the surplus into business and personal portions. For the business portion the GST to GST Payable, before adding the remaining amount to the Employee’s taxable income. Add the personal portion to the Employee’s after tax income
- Reconciliation Deficit - as with the surplus, split the deficit into business and personal portions. For the business portion credit the GST to GST Payable, before deducting the remaining amount from the Employee’s taxable income. Deduct the personal portion to the Employee’s after tax income. Please note for vehicles above the Luxury Car Tax (LCT) threshold the above rules may not apply.