{"id":56,"date":"2016-12-01T03:35:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T03:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/wp-blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2017-03-20T03:33:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T03:33:44","slug":"work-christmas-party-expenses-tax-deduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/work-christmas-party-expenses-tax-deduction\/","title":{"rendered":"ARE WORK CHRISTMAS PARTY EXPENSES A TAX DEDUCTION?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In general, no!<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t use expenses from entertainment as an income tax deduction. There are some\u00a0exceptions<\/a>, mostly around food expenses for meal allowances and incidentals relating to business travel and overtime etc., but otherwise entertainment, even specifically for business purposes, is not deductible\u00a0unless<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0you decide to classify the expense as a fringe benefit.<\/p>\n

\u2018Entertainment\u2019 according to the\u00a0ATO<\/a>, is the provision of entertainment with food, drink or recreation. There isn\u2019t an \u2018Entertainment Fringe Benefit\u2019 category, however \u2018entertainment\u2019 may fall into the following fringe benefit categories:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. An expense payment fringe benefit \u2013 for example, the cost of theatre tickets purchased by an employee and reimbursed by the employer<\/li>\n
  2. A property fringe benefit \u2013 for example, providing food and drink<\/li>\n
  3. A residual fringe benefit \u2013 for example, providing accommodation or transport in connection with entertainment<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you seek to get a tax deduction for your Christmas party expense you may then be subject to the 46.5% Fringe Benefit Tax on the expense amount.<\/p>\n

    Include the extra costs associated with your\u00a0accounting fees, to deal with the Fringe Benefit Tax, and the benefit of including the Christmas Party expenses as a tax deduction is likely to be null and void\u00a0and hardly worth the effort.<\/p>\n

    Anyway, enjoy your Christmas parties, just remember it won\u2019t be worth much as a tax deduction and make sure you keep enough money in the kitty to cover your\u00a0post-Christmas cash flow needs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    All the best for Chrissy!<\/p>\n

    For more information on fringe benefit tax visit the\u00a0ATO<\/a>\u00a0website.<\/p>\n

    If you are uncertain on this subject, and would like advice and guidance on this matter, please\u00a0call Mark and the team<\/a>\u00a0at Trak on 07 5512 6106.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In general, no! You can\u2019t use expenses from entertainment as an income tax deduction. There are some\u00a0exceptions, mostly around food expenses for meal allowances and incidentals relating to business travel and overtime etc., but otherwise entertainment, even specifically for business purposes, is not deductible\u00a0unless\u00a0you decide to classify the expense as a fringe benefit. \u2018Entertainment\u2019 accordingRead More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cashflow","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Trak_WebBlog_Work-Xmas-Party_FB.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trakaccountants.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}