Uber Tax Returns & BAS’s for Rideshare & Food Delivery Drivers

BAS stands for Business Activity Statement. A BAS is a form that you must submit to the ATO each quarter. You must report your total sales (i.e. gross fares before deducting Uber fees), GST on Sales, and GST on Expenses.  You’ll then take the GST on Sales minus GST on Expenses to find your net GST payable, which you will pay to the ATO.  You can read more about how this works in our blog post on calculating GST.

All rideshare drivers must be registered for GST, because the usual $75k GST registration threshold does not apply to Uber drivers. Once you’re registered for GST you must lodge a BAS every single quarter, even if you didn’t drive or didn’t earn any income.

Generally speaking, no. Food delivery drivers do not have to register for GST unless their ABN income (i.e. Uber plus any other self-employed or contracting income) is over $75,000. If you are not registered for GST then you do not have to lodge a BAS.

There are three methods you can choose from to lodge your quarterly BAS. You can lodge yourself via a paper form, lodge yourself via MyGov, or lodge through DriveTax or another tax agent.  Your due date will vary depending on which of these methods you choose, you can find these dates above.

No, we do need the monthly summaries. The weekly summaries don’t give the tax breakdown we need. Plus it would be much more work to collate thirteen weekly summaries, we’re not able to do this at our standard price. If you haven’t received your monthly summary from Uber yet, you will need to wait for it to arrive. If you’re worried about missing the tax agent’s BAS deadline listed above feel free to email us.

You must lodge a BAS every single quarter, even if you didn’t drive. If you didn’t earn anything in a given quarter you can easily lodge a ‘Nil BAS’ via MyGov. There is also an automated phone service to lodge a Nil BAS, but you’ll need the Document ID from your BAS. Unless you have the paper form in front of you you’ll need to log into MyGov to get the Doc ID, so it’s much easier to lodge the Nil BAS there instead.

If you’re no longer rideshare driving you can de-register for GST through your MyGov or by calling the ATO, and then you won’t have lodge any further BAS’s. You can also cancel your ABN if you want to, but you may choose to leave the ATO open. It costs nothing to have, and you don’t have to lodge anything if you don’t use it, so many people choose to keep it active in case it comes in handy for any other business or contracting income.

You must be registered for GST before using our Express BAS service. If you’re not already registered you can use our free GST Registration service.

If you have a few BAS’s to catch up on that’s no problem, you can still use our Express Tax service for past BAS’s. You’ll need to submit one Express BAS form for each quarter. Or if you have four or more BAS’s to lodge please email us instead.

For BAS’s a logbook is not compulsory. Instead the ATO will accept a reasonable estimate of your business-use percentage when claiming your car expenses. Note that you will still need a logbook for your end of year tax return. You can read more about logbooks in our blog post on Tax Deductions for Uber Drivers.

You must have some kind of record or evidence of every expense in order to claim. For BAS’s, for expenses over $82.50 it must be a proper tax invoice (a digital copy is fine). For expenses under $82.50 any kind of record, for example your bank statement, is acceptable. For expenses paid in cash where you didn’t get a receipt, for example coin car washes, you can make a handwritten note. Read more about recordkeeping in our blog post on Tax Deductions for Uber Drivers.

Your employee income and deductions are included in the tax return fee. We can help with all occupations and all kinds of employee deductions.

Yes absolutely. Non-Uber drivers can use our Express Tax service too. You’ll find a question in the first section of the form asking what kind of driving you did. Just answer none, and then the form will automatically skip all the Uber questions.

Our standard fees include simple dividends and managed fund income. Our fee for rental properties is $88 per property. Capital Gains or additional business income may incur additional fees. If this applies to you please contact us for a quote.

Yes, we do have a limited number of phone / Skype appointments available in from July to October. You can view our appointment calendar and book a consultation here.

No. DriveTax is a 100% online business. This allows us to keep costs low, and to service clients across Australia. So we do not offer face to face appointments.

Yes. We will download your prefilling report from the ATO. This will show your payment summaries, bank interest, dividends and private health insurance, so you do not have to send us any of these details.

You will need your Uber monthly summaries, and the monthly summaries of other companies you drive for. If you lodged all your BAS’s with DriveTax for the year then we will already have your expense information. Otherwise you will need your Uber expenses summarised into category totals (e.g. total for fuel, total for insurance, total for mints etc). For more detail, please see our Get Ready Guide.

After you’ve submitted your Express Tax form we’ll ask you to email us any relevant documents. This will include your Uber Monthly Summaries (unless you sent them already when lodging Express BAS’s with DriveTax), your tax invoice and loan documents if you bought a car during the year, rental property statements if relevant, and a few other items. We’ll let you know exactly what to send! You don’t need to send payment summaries or private health insurance statements, we’ll download these from the ATO. And you do not have to send your receipts or logbook, just file these safely in case the ATO asks to see them. You can read more detail in our Get Ready Guide.

You must have receipts or records for all expenses you wish to claim. For GST/BAS purposes, for expenses over $82.50 you must have a tax invoice. But for tax return purposes any kind of record is fine, including bank statements. They don’t have to be physical receipts, photos or scans are fine too. You can read more about recordkeeping requirements in our post on Tax Deductions for Uber Drivers.

If you haven’t kept a valid 12-week logbook with odometer readings, then we will need to use the cents per km method to claim your car deductions instead. This is a maximum of 5,000km x 68 cents per km, giving a maximum deduction of $3,400. You do not need any records for this, the ATO will accept a reasonable estimate of your kms. You can read more about claiming car expenses in our blog post on Tax Deductions for Uber Drivers.

No I’m sorry we don’t offer this service, as the legal and audit requirements make the cost prohibitive for a small accounting firm. We will send your tax invoice once we’ve completed your tax return, and we can lodge your return to the ATO once we’ve received your payment.

Once your return has been lodged, the ATO will send your Notice of Assessment in around two weeks time. This will show you due date and list the ATO’s payment options, which will include credit card and Bpay. If you’re lodging on time and have lodged on time in the past, your due date may be a few months away, so check your NoA carefully.

Yes, the ATO makes it very simple to set up a payment arrangement. You don’t even need to speak to a person. The easiest way is via your MyGov, or you can call an ATO automated phone service. You can read more information here.