sars travel logbook example

How to Fill SARS Travel Logbook

If you use your private car for business purposes and receive a travel allowance from your employer, you can claim a deduction on your annual income tax return. To do this, you must have a SARS travel logbook where you record your vehicle’s odometer reading and details of your business travel. This article explains how you fill out your SARS travel logbook. 

How Do I Fill SARS Travel Logbook?

First and foremost, you should download the SARS eLogbook for the tax year, which starts on 1st March and ends on 28th February of the following year. Your 2022 – 23 SARS elogbook assessment must-have business travel details from 1st March to 28th February 2024. The tax filing season starts on 1st July 2024. 

You must first record your motor vehicle odometer reading on 1st March and record the odometer reading on 28 or 29 February, the last day of the tax year. The logbook has fields you should fill in related to your business travel. You can calculate your total kilometres for the tax year by subtracting opening kilometres from opening kilometres. 

When you fill out the SARS travel logbook, only include the kilometres covered when you travel for business. There are fields in the logbook where you enter your destination and kilometres travelled. Remember that you cannot claim the travel between your home and workplace for business purposes. 

You must have a separate logbook for each car if you have more than one vehicle used for business during a particular tax year. You must record the following details for every business trip in your SARS travel logbook.

• Date of travel 
• Business travel information (Starting point of the destination, places visited, and reasons for the business trip)  
• Kilometres travelled 

Make sure you keep your logbook for about five years from the date you submit your return because you may be asked to submit it to SARS to support your claim . 

Do You Have to Use SARS Logbook?

Without a travel logbook, you cannot claim any cost of business travel against the travel allowance allocated to you. In other words, without a logbook, you cannot claim for travel deduction. With a travel logbook, it becomes easier to calculate the amount you can travel. SARS can also use the logbook to verify your claim if the need arises. Therefore, you should retain your logbook with other material for five years from the submission date. 

How Does SARS Calculate Travel Allowance?

SARS uses two methods to calculate your travel allowance. The first method involves using a cost scale table supplied by SARS and found in the introduction section of your travel logbook.

The simplified way utilizes the fixed rate per kilometre, as illustrated in the table below. With this method, there should be no other advance, no allowance, or other compensation paid by the employer. 

SARS can also calculate your claim using actual costs incurred during your business travels. It is essential to keep a record of your expenses during the tax year on top of keeping a logbook. The expenses include repairs and maintenance, oil, fuel, insurance, car license, finance charges, wear-and-tear, and lease costs. 

If the employer provides a fixed allowance to the employee for business travel, the amount will appear under code 3701 on the IRP5. If a petrol card is issued, the money used for fuel will be added to the total amount. 

A valid log book with all the necessary information about business trips covered must be maintained to support your claim. If some of the relevant details are missing, SARS may dismiss the logbook, which may lead to additional assessment.

To succeed in your claim for business travel costs, you should take the following measures: 

• Ensure your opening kilometres on the odometer matches the previous year’s closing kilometre. Any mismatch can lead to the dismissal of your claim by SARS. If you have a good reason for the mismatch, ensure you write a letter to SARS. 
• Check the correctness of the kilometres covered during private and business travel. If there is an error, SARS may decline your claim. 
• The car’s service history must correspond with your logbook, or else your claim is dismissed. 
• Ensure that you provide reasonable private and business kilometres to get the best result. If your claim is biased toward business travel, your claim can be rejected. There is no way you can use your vehicle for private business. For instance, the distance from your home to your workstation is private, not a business. 

Therefore, keeping an accurate travel logbook is a good idea to make it easier for SARS to calculate your travel allowance.   

What Is the SARS Rate per Kilometre?

The tables published in the government gazette and SARS’s travel logbooks are used to determine the allowable rate per kilometre for business travel deductions. If the employer pays no other compensation to the employee, the rate is 418 cents or R4.18 per kilometre. 

If the reimbursed travel costs exceed the prescribed rate of R4.18 per kilometre, the full amount will be subject to PAYE. With fixed travel insurance, only 80% of the travel allowance will be subject to PAYE. If the employee has not met the full cost of fuel used in the car or maintenance costs, no claim can be made against these two. 

If you use your private vehicle for business purposes, you are eligible to claim a travel allowance. You must keep an accurate travel logbook to make it easier for SARS to calculate and process your claim. Without a travel logbook, your claim will be rejected.  

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Travel e-log book- SARS Logbook used to claim a deduction on personaltax

When can you claim for travel, what do i need to do.

Firstly, record your motor vehicles odometer reading on 1 March, i.e. on the first day of a tax year.

Secondly, make sure that you keep a logbook throughout the year. Note that it is not necessary to record details of private travel. You may make use of the SARS eLogbook, simply download the:

• 2019/20 logbook for the 1 March 2019 – 29 February 2020 assessment year and tax season starting 1 Jul 2020
• 2018/19 logbook for the 1 March 2018 – 28 February 2019 assessment year and tax season starting 1 Jul 2019
• 2017/18 logbook for the 1 March 2017 – 28 February 2018 assessment year and tax season starting 1 Jul 2018
• 2016/17 logbook for the 1 March 2016 – 28 February 2017 assessment year and tax season starting 1 Jul 2017
• 2015/16 logbook for the 1 March 2015 29 February 2016 assessment year and tax season starting 1 Jul 2016
• 2014/15 logbook for the 1 March 2014 28 February 2015 assessment year and tax season starting 1 Jul 2015

Top Tip: Without a logbook you wont be able to claim the cost of business travel against your travel allowance.

Thirdly, record your motor vehicles closing odometer reading on the last day of February (28/29) of the next year, i.e. on the last day of the applicable tax year.

Fourthly, calculate your total kilometres for the full year (closing kilometres less opening kilometres).

Fifthly, calculate your total business kilometres for the year (sum of all business kilometres).

What do I record in my logbook?

• The date of travel
• The kilometres travelled
• Business travel details (where you started your trip, where you went and the reason for the trip)

How do I work out how much I can claim?

• Calculate your claim based on the cost scale table which SARS supplies (youll find this table in the introduction section to the travel eLogbook)
• Calculate your claim based on actual costs. To do this, you’ll have to keep an accurate record of all your expenses during the year, in addition to keeping a log book. These expenses include fuel, oil, repairs and maintenance, car licence, insurance, wear-and-tear and finance charges or lease costs.
• 80% of the travelling allowance must be included in the employees remuneration for the purposes of calculating PAYE. The percentage is reduced to 20% if the employer is satisfied that at least 80% of the use of the motor vehicle for the tax year will be for business purposes.
• No fuel cost may be claimed if the employee has not borne the full cost of fuel used in the vehicle and no maintenance cost may be claimed if the employee has not borne the full cost of maintaining the vehicle (e.g. if the vehicle is covered by a maintenance plan).
• The fixed cost must be reduced on a pro-rata basis if the vehicle is used for business purposes for less than a full year. The actual distance travelled during a tax year and the distance travelled for business purposes substantiated by a log book are used to determine the costs which may be claimed against a travelling allowance.

SARS – Travel eLogbook

Sars has detailed the steps to be followed below:, latest from our blog, non-executive directors (vat and paye), tax cases – high court.

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SARS Travel eLogbook 2023/24

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• 05 April 2023
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This handy document sets out how a taxpayer should go about calculating a travel deduction if they are in receipt of a travel allowance.

Without a logbook, a taxpayer will not be able to claim a travel deduction.

It is now compulsory to keep a logbook of all travel in which the taxpayer records their business kilometres if you want to claim a travel deduction.

The logbook must contain the following minimum information relating to your business travel:

• Date of travel
• Kilometres travelled
• Travel details (where to and reason for the trip)

Click here to download the Travel eLogbook:

https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Docs/Logbook/2023-24-SARS-eLogbook.pdf

Relevance to Auditors, Independent Reviewers & Accountants:

• The Income Tax Act is yet another piece of legislation that your clients must comply with, and which you must assess compliance with.  If they don’t comply with the relevant laws and regulations, you have certain reporting obligations in terms of NOCLAR (NOn-Compliance with Laws And Regulations) – this could include reporting to management, qualifying your audit opinion, reporting a Reportable Irregularity, etc.
• As an auditor, independent reviewer or accoutant, you need to consider the latest publications and tools that have been issued by Regulatory bodies, e.g. SARS.
• As a tax practitioner, you need to advise your clients on the latest publications available from SARS to facilitate any travel deduction.
• As a taxpayer who receives a travel allowance, you also need to keep a logbook which records your business travel in order to claim the relevant deduction at the end of the tax year.

Relevance to Your clients:

• As a taxpayer who receives a travel allowance, your clients need to keep a logbook which records their business travel in order to claim the relevant deduction at the end of the tax year.

To stay current with all the latest changes and updates subscribe to our Monthly Compliance and Legislative Update series for R 250.00 per month. This gives you access to a monthly 2-hour webinar and monthly newsletter: https://accountingacademy.co.za/profession/monthly-legislation-update

Get all your CPD online. SA Accounting Academy (SAAA) offers Subscription Plans, Live Webinars, Webinars On-Demand, Access to Experts, Courses, Articles and more: https://cpd.accountingacademy.co.za .

The SA Accounting Academy (SAAA) Technical Resource Centre is constantly updated by our team of experts to help you stay compliant and informed. The Technical Resource Centre service is free for all SAAA Designation CPD subscriber members to use.

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Excel logbook for SARS

If you are looking to create an Excel logbook for SARS and you want it to include the dates for working days only, you can easily create it in Excel using the WORKDAY function. Using this function means you that you won’t need to enter every date and it can even take into account public holidays.

Below a video explanation from our YouTube channel (please remember to susbcribe)

The process itself is fairly easy. Open a new workbook and in cell A2 enter the start date e.g. 1 Jan 2014.

In cell C2 to C15 list the public holidays you want to take into account.

Now in Cell A3 type the following formulae

=WORKDAY(A2,1,$C$2:$C$15)

The formula above will start at 1 Jan 2014 and will show you the date of the next workday. This formula assumes that Saturday and Sunday are non work days and also assumes that the public holidays listed in C2 to C15 are non work days. To understand how it works watch the WORKDAY video clip

You can now copy the formula down as far as you want and it will show only the upcoming workdays. Then to make it even more useful, format the date to include the day of the week (click on the date cells, right click and click on FORMAT CELLS, click on CUSTOM and in the dialogue box type dd mmm yyyy dddd)

If you work in an industry where Saturday and/ or Sundays could be work days e.g. a restaurant and you want for example a Monday to be treated as a ‘weekend’ then you need to make use of the WORKDAY.INTL function. All it asks for is an additional option of what is considered a weekend.

So the syntax as shown below is exactly the same except for the Weekend option

WORKDAY.INTL(Start Date, Days, [Weekend] ,[Holidays])

For the Weekend option you can enter a number from 1 to 17 which tells Excel what to consider a weekend i.e.

• 1 or omitted = Saturday, Sunday
• 2 = Sunday, Monday
• 3 = Monday, Tuesday
• 4 = Tuesday, Wednesday
• 5 = Wednesday, Thursday
• 6 = Thursday, Friday
• 7 = Friday, Saturday
• 11 = Sunday only
• 12 = Monday only
• 13 = Tuesday only
• 14 = Wednesday only
• 15 = Thursday only
• 16 = Friday only
• 17 = Saturday only

SARS Excel Logbook Download

Want to learn more about Microsoft Excel and creating a logbook yourself? If you prefer attending a course and live in South Africa look at the Johannesburg  MS Excel 3 Day Advanced Course   or the Cape Town  MS Excel 3 Day Advanced training course. If you prefer online learning or live outside South Africa, look at our  online MS Excel training courses .

Download the Free Excel Logbook from SARS here.

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Is A Logbook Really Necessary? Or Can SARS Use Code 3702 To Audit Potential Business Kilometers Travelled?

Contributor.

I have often wondered whether the South African Revenue Service (SARS) officials thoroughly review the submitted logbooks when taxpayers claim for travel expenses incurred as a result of business travel or are these requested just to tick a box? This sense of wonder has been recently resolved, SARS audits the logbooks to the extent of even requesting the details of the person or company being visited.

SARS recently changed the format in which logbooks should be captured. It is now compulsory to keep a logbook of all business kilometres travelled if taxpayers want to claim a travel deduction. The logbook must contain the following minimum information relating to business travel:

• The date of travel
• Total Kilometres travelled (business and private)
• Travel details (where to and reason for the trip)

Taxpayers have to record their odometer readings on 1 March each year (the first day of the tax year for individuals), and again on the last day of February the following year (the last day of the tax year for individuals).

The difference between the closing and opening readings will give the total kilometres travelled for the year.

It is true that the above exercise can be quiet stressful sometimes, you could also simply forget to update the logbook timeously. Which again poses the question of whether the logbooks submitted to SARS are a true reflection of the taxpayers business travel.

SARS however reserves the right to audit and query the content or information recorded by the taxpayer in any logbook.

Is there not a way to redirect SARS audit focus and resources on other things?

Let's look into this further.

Travel Allowance

The Income Tax Act No.58 of 1962 (Income Tax Act) allows taxpayers who receive a travel allowance to claim a deduction for the use of their private vehicles for business purposes. Reference is made to Section 8 (1)(b)(ii)&(iii) of the Income Tax Act.

A travel allowance is any allowance paid or advance given to an employee in respect of travelling expenses for business purposes.

Generally, the two different travel allowance classifications are-

• A travel allowance given to an employee to finance transport (for example, a set rate or amount per pay period).
• A reimbursement given to an employee based on actual business travel.

Let us now have a look at the difference between the two.

Travel allowance

The total travel allowance (100%) must be reflected on the IRP5 certificate under code 3701.

80% of the travel allowance paid to an employee is subject to the deduction of employees' tax. Where the employer is satisfied that at least 80% of the use of the motor vehicle for a year of assessment will be for business purposes. 20% of the allowance is subject to the deduction of employees' tax. This determination must be done on a monthly basis to cater for any possible changes in employee's circumstances.

A perfect example of this would be the working situation during the current Covid 19 pandemic. Employees had structured their packages to cater for business travel but during the pandemic, no travel or even less travel was required.

Reimbursive allowance

A reimbursive travel allowance is where an allowance or advance is based on the actual distance travelled for business purposes (that is excluding private use). For the 2022 tax year, the rate per kilometre fixed by the Minister of Finance is currently 3.82 per kilometre.

It is trite practice that most employers would offer their employees a rate per kilometre that is above the fixed rate by the Minister (e.g. R4,40 instead of R3,82) - reference is made to Notice 271 of the Government Gazette, paragraph 4 of the Fixing of Rate per Kilometre i.e. Motor Vehicle Regulation. In such an instance, the IRP5 code to use is code 3702, which is a taxable code.

Where the employer reimburses the employee at a rate lower than the prescribed rate (e.g. R3,70 instead of R3,82), the IRP5 code to use is 3703 which is a non-taxable code.

Let us now assume that the employee received both travel allowance and reimbursive allowance of code 3702 and discuss below.

Hybrid of travel allowances

Where a travel allowance is paid in addition to a reimbursive allowance or reimbursive allowance is paid in addition to a travel allowance, both the amounts will be combined on assessment by SARS. These combined allowances will be treated as a taxable travel allowance. Generally, the employee will claim a travel deduction based on kilometres travelled. But before SARS can allow this deduction, it requires a logbook as discussed above.

Let us now address our question of whether a logbook is required or SARS can use the code 3702 to determine the business travel for the tax year.

Considering the hybrid of travel allowances mentioned above, the general business practice is that employers will reimburse employees based on business kilometres travelled. Is it not correct then to consider what is reflected under the reimbursement code 3702 as business kilometres travelled?

The only question from SARS should be how much was the employers' reimbursement rate or by how much is the employers' reimbursement rate high when compared to the fixed rate by the Minister?

Example: The total business kilometres travelled for the period is 21 000km per the taxpayer's submitted logbook. The amount that is reflected under code 3702 is R48 000. It was confirmed that the company reimburses its employees at a fixed rate of R4,40. Therefore the estimated business travel for the said employee should be R48 000/R4,40 = 10 909 business kilometres that were approved and paid by the employer.

The question for SARS to pose then would be - why are the business kilometres per the logbook submitted by taxpayers higher than what was reimbursed by the employer?

Example: code 3702 reflects R48 000 as indicated above, which deems the employee to have travelled 10 909 kilometres for business purposes vs a logbook showing 21 000 business kilometres travelled (difference of 12 091 i.e. 21 000 km - 10 909 km.).

Well, it may be arguable to say that the taxpayer did not claim all its travel expenditure (due to one reason or the other) hence the amount reflecting under code 3702 is less than the actual business kilometres per the logbook.

This argument would again be reasonable if the variance between the actual business kilometres per the logbook and deemed business kilometres per code 3702 is not material.

Now taking the difference of business kilometres not claimed in the above example of 12 091, this would imply that the taxpayer forego R53 200 ( 12 091 x R4,40) worth of travel reimbursement. Now, show me an employee that does not want to be compensated or reimbursed for expenditure incurred for business purposes!

The onus is still however on the taxpayer or employer to prove to SARS the correctness of the details therein.

Being tax compliant and 'paying our fair share' is not just good for taxpayers, but also contributes to the positive growth of our country's economy which in turn benefits all South Africans.

In line with SARS's continued effort to improve compliance and to make it even easier for taxpayers to manage their tax affairs, a review of the process followed currently to claim travel expenses will go a long way . We therefore urge SARS to continue trying to find means and ways for more taxpayers to be auto assessed- e.g. auto assessment of allowing a travel deduction based on code 3702. This will help lessen the administration burden of having to maintain yearly logbooks. The normal rule will apply where if a taxpayer is not in agreement with the auto-assessment, and can over-ride it.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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