The Taxation of Automobiles

As discussed in my early January blog Mitigating Your Exposure to Five Popular Canada Revenue Agency ("CRA") Audit Target Areas, automobile expenses are often audited by the CRA and are one of the most contentious items in any review or audit. In my opinion, there are two reasons for this: (1) auto expenses are a fairly simple income tax concept and therefore easy to audit even for inexperienced CRA auditors and (2) auto expenses are an easy target because people do not properly document the business usage of their automobile and thus leave themselves at the mercy of an auditor.

Employees

In order to claim automobile expenses as an employee or commission employee, your employer must complete Form T2200-Declaration of Conditions of Employment. You can then claim your automobile expenses on Form T777  less any non-taxable reimbursements or allowances, to the extent your car is used for business purposes, as discussed in greater detail below. 

Self-Employed Individuals

Similar to employees, most self-employed people typically compile 100% of their gas receipts, repairs expenses, insurance premiums, toll highway fees, car washes and lease costs when organizing and gathering their information for personal income tax purposes. This full claim is then reduced, often after discussions with their accountant, by the personal portion of their automobile usage. For example, if your total automobile costs and expenses are $10,000 and you drive your car 75% of the time for business and 25% of the time for personal purposes, you would report $7,500 for your auto expense claim.

Corporations

If your business is incorporated, the automobile expense issue is more complex. A decision must be made as to whether to own or lease the car in the corporation or whether to own or lease the car personally and charge back the corporation for business use. In the case where you pay 100% of the expenses for your personal car in the corporation, your accountant will typically make an entry to reduce the corporate auto expense by your personal usage ($2,500, using the above example) and charge your shareholder loan for your personal use. Alternatively, if you pay 100% of the auto expenses personally, your accountant will book an entry to increase auto expenses for your business use ($7,500 using the example above) and either have the corporation reimburse you for $7,500 or credit your shareholder loan for the $7,500 of business related costs you paid personally.

In order to avoid the standby charge discussed below, my firm typically does not recommend the purchase or lease of an automobile by the corporation, unless the automobile is used almost exclusively for business and can be documented as such.To be clear, I am not talking about a van, truck, etc. that is used 100% for business purposes, but a car that you drive essentially all the time, both personally and corporately.

Employer Owned Automobiles - The Dreaded Standby Charge

If you are an employee or a shareholder of a corporation that owns or leases the car that you use, you may have an employment benefit called a standby charge. Each year, the standby charge is calculated as 24% of the cost of the car, if the car was purchased, or 2/3 of the lease costs, if the car was leased. In addition, there could be an additional benefit for the operating costs, equal to ½ of the standby charge (if business use is 50% or greater) or 26 cents (for 2012) for each personal kilometre driven. As noted above, the benefit is always 24% of the original cost of the car, even as the car declines in value. Thus, consideration should be given to purchasing the car after three or four years where possible.

If your personal usage of a corporately owned vehicle is low relative to the business usage, there is a possible reduction in the standby charge. Where you drove primarily for business (>50%) and your personal usage km were less than 1,667 km a month or 20,004 km a year, the standby charge is calculated as follows:

Personal use kilometres/ (1,667 x the number of months the car was available to you) x the original standby charge calculated (24% x the original cost of the car or 2/3 the lease costs).

Essentially, the lower your personal use kilometres, the greater the reduction in the standby charge. Based on the formula above, once you reach 20,004 personal km the reduction is eliminated.

Business vs. Personal Usage

For individual and corporate taxpayers who claim a deduction for automobile expenses, the percentage of business use versus the percentage of personal use is often subject to a challenge by the CRA. As support for the relative percentage usage, at a minimum, I always recommend that the taxpayer note the car’s odometer reading as at January 1st and again on December 31st. The reason for doing such is that at least the quantum of kilometres driven in a year will be clear to the CRA reviewer or auditor. The best evidence to support the business use kilometres for purposes of an automobile expense claim is a log book which denotes the client or customer driven to and the number of kilometres the trip took; however, very few people maintain such detailed records. Many people often have to scramble to build a log book by going back up to three years and using their Outlook calendars to rebuild their driving records when asked by the CRA to support their business usage claim. This is not a fun exercise.

Depending upon the auditor, you can sometimes negotiate an agreed upon business/personal usage rate without a logbook; however, where the auditor agrees to this approach, it always results in a reduction of the business use claim by the taxpayer.

The CRA now offers to give some consideration to a log book for a sample period where there is one year of detailed record keeping. The following is what the CRA says in regards to a sample logbook:

The CRA would be prepared to afford considerable weight to a logbook maintained for a sample period as evidence of a full year's usage of a vehicle if it meets the following criteria.

The taxpayer has previously filled out and retained a log book covering a full 12-month period that was typical for the business (the “base year”). The 12-month period is not required to be a calendar year.

A logbook for a sample period of at least one continuous three-month period in each subsequent year has been maintained (the “sample year period”).

The distances travelled and the business use of the vehicle during the three-month sample period is within 10 percentage points of the corresponding figures for the same three-month period in the base year (the “base year period”).

The calculated annual business use of the vehicle in a subsequent year does not go up or down by more than 10 percentage points in comparison to the base year.

In Summary- Documentation is Vital

Claiming and documenting automobile expenses is a tedious and time consuming process. However, if you are ever audited, you will be thankful you undertook the effort.

The blogs posted on The Blunt Bean Counter provide information of a general nature. These posts should not be considered specific advice; as each reader's personal financial situation is unique and fact specific. Please contact a professional advisor prior to implementing or acting upon any of the information contained in one of the blogs.

20 Things I Don’t Understand About Income Tax

Rob Carrick recently wrote a great column in The Globe & Mail entitled, “20 things I don’t understand about personal finance”. The article caused me to smirk and chuckle several times. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so here are the top 20 things I do not understand about income tax:

1. Why can’t spouses file joint income tax returns as is permitted in the United States? It would equalize income tax rates, simplify our tax system, reduce the administrative time required to prepare and process personal income taxes and reduce the amount of paper the Canada Revenue Agency ("CRA") receives each year.

2. Why are parents only allowed a transfer of $5,000 of their child’s unused tuition, education and book credits? The parent is often the one who paid the costs of tuition, why is the credit transfer restricted. At a minimum, this cap should be re-evaluated in the wake of rising tuition costs.

3. Why people are so consumed with saving income tax that they buy tax shelters of dubious nature? There are numerous shelters or schemes out there that purport to reduce income taxes significantly. People are so hungry to reduce their taxes that they forgot their common sense – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

4. Why child care expenses must be claimed by the lower income spouse? The motivation behind the child care deduction is to get people with children back to work to help drive the economy. Who’s to say which spouse was the spouse that was enabled to head back into the work force by hiring child care?

5. Why so many people ask for their RESP tax deduction receipt? Receipts aren’t necessary since the contributions are not tax deductible.

6. Why when one spouse has a tax refund and the other owes money, you can’t net the refund and tax payment against each other? Again, this would simplify our tax system and reduce the administration and paper work for the CRA.

7. Why people are loathe to realize a capital gain on an investment because they will have to pay income tax on the gain (which by the way, will be subject to tax at maximum rate of 23%)? Often individuals wait too long before selling and end up converting what would have been a capital gain into a capital loss (case in point: individuals who held shares of Nortel too long because they did not want to pay the income tax on the inherent gain). I have a whole blog on this topic upcoming.

8. Why do so many people think they can contribute the maximum RRSP limit to both their spousal RRSP and their own RRSP? It is one RRSP limit per person, regardless of the number of RRSPs contributed to.

9. Why people complain about income tax preparation fees, which help reduce the risk of costly potential future re-assessments, yet they are willing to "blow" thousands of dollars on investments in ridiculous companies or options trading they heard about on the radio without blinking an eye? 

10. Why don’t people who can deduct their car expenses, not note their odometer reading on January 1st and December 31st of each year. This would provide them with at least the total km driven in a given year, even if they are not willing to keep log books? The CRA has relaxed their administrative position concerning log books recently, but I still think there is no substitution for a log book and at minimum, noting your odometer readings at the beginning and end of each year.

11. Why the withholding taxes on RRSPs are graduated? Withdrawals up to $5,000 are subject to a 10% withholding tax; withdrawals between $5,001 and $15,000 are subject to a 20% withholding tax; and withdrawals of $15,001 or greater are subject to a 30% withholding tax. These graduated rates often cause significant income tax owing in April since the size of the withdrawal has no correlation to the taxpayer’s marginal income tax rate. All withdrawals should be subject to higher withholding rates (or withholding at the highest marginal tax rate) to prevent this issue.

12. Why does the CRA constantly send information requests for documentation to support child care claims in relation to nannies? Taxpayers are required to report the nannies social insurance number when claiming a child care expense. All that is required by the CRA is to match the social insurance number to the T4 filed by the employer for the nanny. The CRA has other programs which match items in a person’s tax return to a T-slip, why can’t they include this?

13. Why do people pay no attention to the RRSP contribution limit information on their income tax assessments when planning their RRSP contributions for the year? An individual’s RRSP contribution limit for the upcoming year is printed right on the Notice of Assessment for the prior year. It is also available on-line assuming that you register for on-line access on the Canada Revenue Agency’s website.

14. Why don’t people create a file folder for charitable donations they make during the year? If a donation is made online, they can print out the confirmation at the same time and replace the confirmation with the actual online receipt when received. Alternativey, if a cheque or pledge is made, make a copy and replace that copy when the actual receipt is received in the mail. By doing such, at year end it will be clear which donation receipts are missing and have to be chased down.

15. Why do people have money in non-registered accounts but yet they have not fully funded their TFSAs? Just transfer $5,000 each year, non-taxable is always better than taxable.

16. What do post-secondary aged children have against printing out their T2202A tuition receipts for their parents without being admonished? They are now at the age where they are supposed to be considered responsible adults – they should act like one.

17. Why do people who buy stocks not create a spreadsheet to track the cost (adjusted cost base) of the stocks purchased? In addition, when stocks are inherited from parents or grandparents, why not note the value reported on the parent’s or grandparent’s terminal income tax return so the cost base is not lost. You wouldn’t believe the number of times that shares have been passed down from one generation to the next where the recipient has no idea of the actual cost base.

18. Why do people transfer assets to try and save probate taxes without understanding the consequences for income tax. See my blog on probate taxes for a discussion of some of the possible detrimental income tax consequences when tranfers are made blindly for probate purposes.

19. Does the public transit credit or the children’s fitness/activity credit really incentivize anyone to use public transit or put their child in a sports/activity program? The tax benefit from these credits is so small. If the government really wanted to advocate these behaviours or activities there are better ways to do this than offer petty tax credits.

20. Should the labour sponsored funds tax credit be more appropriately called the convert $5,000 and turn it into a $1,000 credit? Enough said.

I am sure I could come up with another list of 20 plus things I don’t understand about income tax, but I will leave that for another blog for a rainy day.

The blogs posted on The Blunt Bean Counter provide information of a general nature. These posts should not be considered specific advice; as each reader's personal financial situation is unique and fact specific. Please contact a professional advisor prior to implementing or acting upon any of the information contained in one of the blogs.