Retail car travel between stores and overtime meals

Travel is where retail workers most often claim something they cannot, because the drive to work feels like part of the job. It is not. But there is genuine work travel in retail, especially for supervisors and merchandisers who cover more than one store, and there is a narrow meal claim tied to overtime. This chapter draws both lines clearly, so you claim the trips and the meals that count and leave the commute where it belongs.

The commute is not deductible

The trip between home and your regular store is private, however far you travel and whatever hours you work. That holds even when you open early or close late, and even when you split your week across two regular stores: the journey to a regular place of work is a private cost, not a work one. Parking near your usual store and the tolls you pay to get there go the same way. Living a long way from the shop does not change it.

The travel that does count

Deductible travel starts once you are moving for the work itself rather than getting to it. The clearest cases in retail are driving between two different stores for the same employer on the same day, driving from your store to an off-site meeting or training session, and travelling straight from home to an alternative workplace such as a seminar rather than your usual store. A visual merchandiser servicing several stores in a day, or a supervisor sent to cover another branch, is doing exactly this kind of travel. There are narrow extra cases, such as carrying bulky, essential equipment with no secure storage at work, but they are specific and worth checking against your own situation.

The two ways to claim a car

Where you use your own car for that work travel, you claim it one of two ways. The cents-per-kilometre method pays a set rate for each work kilometre up to a yearly cap, and needs a reasonable way of showing how you reached the distance. The logbook method claims the work-related percentage of your actual running costs, based on a representative logbook period. The per-kilometre rate is reset each income year, so check the current one on the ATO cars and travel page before you calculate rather than carrying an old rate forward. You cannot use both methods for the same car in the same year, and you cannot claim petrol or servicing separately on top of either. Keep a record of the trips as you make them, because the distance is the first thing a car claim rests on.

Overtime meals, and the allowance behind them

The cost of a meal eaten while working overtime can be claimed, though only where three things line up. You have to receive an overtime meal allowance under an industrial law, award or agreement, that allowance has to appear separately on your income statement, and you declare it as income. When all three hold, the meal you bought and ate during that overtime is deductible. The ATO sets a reasonable amount each year that you can claim without keeping every receipt, though you still have to have spent the money and be able to show how you worked the claim out; spend more than the reasonable amount and you keep receipts for the lot. A meal on an ordinary late shift, with no award overtime allowance behind it, is a private cost.

The bottom line

Leave the commute off, including the drive to a second regular store. What you can claim is the driving the job itself requires: between stores on the same day, to off-site meetings and training, and from home to an alternative workplace, using either the cents-per-kilometre or logbook method with the trips recorded. Claim an overtime meal only where an award allowance is paid and shown separately. Keep those distinctions straight and the travel side of your return will hold.

General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.