The AAT has held that a taxpayer, who was employed by a mining company at Port Hedland in Western Australia on a fly-in fly-out basis (ie as a “distant work employee” under the relevant work agreement), was in receipt of a living-away-from-home allowance (LAFHA) of some $20,000 in the 2009-10 income year pursuant to s 30(1) of the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986, and not a travel allowance as the taxpayer claimed. As a result, the AAT found that he was not entitled to a deduction of some $36,000 that he claimed against the travel allowance.
Instead, the AAT found that as the allowance was properly to be characterised as a LAFHA in the circumstances, it was subject to FBT in the hands of the taxpayer’s employer and therefore travel expenses could not be claimed in relation to it. In doing so, the AAT dismissed the taxpayer’s claim that it should have been treated as a travel allowance in accordance with Taxation Determination TD 2009/15 and instead found that the Determination was not relevant in the taxpayer’s case as it only dealt with what are reasonable travel and meal allowance expenses.
(AAT Case [2012] AATA 836, Hancox and FCT, AAT, Ref No 2011/3484, Dunne SM, 27 November 2012.)
[LTN 232, 29/11]