Some users of electric vehicles (EVs) are faced with the challenge of calculating electricity costs incurred when charging their electric vehicles at home. This applies to employers providing EVs to staff for personal use, or employees who incur work-related car expenses.

To address this, the ATO have issued a new guideline to help calculate the cost of electricity when an EV is charged at home.

The guideline provides a shortcut method to determine the cost of electricity by using the EV home charging rate of 4.20 cents per kilometre.

Important details

• To rely on the guideline, employees need to have incurred an electricity expense when charging the electric vehicle at home.
• Employer clients can use this rate from 1 April 2022 for FBT reporting purposes.
• Employee clients can use this rate from 1 July 2022 for income tax purposes, when using the logbook method.
• If your client chooses to use the EV home charging rate, they can’t include commercial charging station costs unless they can accurately determine the percentage of the vehicle’s total charge based on the type of charging location.
• Your clients can still choose to calculate the electricity value by determining the actual cost incurred instead of relying on the guideline.
• This rate applies to zero emission electric cars only. Plug-in hybrid vehicles, electric motorcycles or electric scooters are excluded.
• Relevant records will need to be kept.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section. We will be happy to answer all your queries.