Private ruling: Overtime meal expenses
Date of advice: 7 October 2015
Published: November 2015
Ruling period: Year ended 30 June 2015
Date scheme commenced: 1 July 2014

Ruling: Q1: Are you entitled to claim a deduction for the purchase of overtime meals? | A1: Yes.

Relevant facts and circumstances: Your offer of employment included the following terms and conditions: • FIFO - You are classified as a Fly In Fly Out [FIFO] employee you will not be entitled to a housing, zone, airconditioning [allowance] but will be provided with full board and accommodation with meals for the duration of your roster. • Meal allowance - FIFO and Local employees will be paid a meal allowance for every day they work 9.5 hours. • FIFO Accommodation - In addition to your base salary if you have your own accommodation you will be paid a taxable weekly allowance for housing. Additionally a daily meal allowance will be paid for each day you are rostered to work (Fatigue days off and Public Holidays inclusive). • Public Holidays - All hours worked on Public Holidays are paid at double time of nominated flat hourly rate. If you are not required to work on a Public Holiday you will be paid 7.6 hours at your flat hourly rate. This applies to Local and FIFO employees. You weren't classified as a FIFO employee until partway through the 2013-14 financial year. Since then you are classified as a local FIFO employee and receive the housing and daily meal allowances.

Relevant legislative provisions: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 8-1

Reasons for decision: Summary: You are entitled to claim a deduction for the purchase of meals when working overtime and you receive the meal allowance for working 9.5 hours. No deduction is allowable for the cost of your other meals. | Detailed Reasoning - Detailed reasoning: Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 allows a deduction for all losses and outgoings to the extent to which they are incurred in gaining or producing assessable income except where the outgoings are of a capital, private or domestic nature, or relate to the earning of exempt income or a provision of the taxation legislation excludes it. The receipt of an allowance does not automatically entitle you to a deduction. To be entitled to a deduction: • you must have actually spent the money and not have been reimbursed, and • the costs must relate to doing your job and must not be private expenses (such as travel from home to work), and • in most cases, you must have records to prove your claims. During the 2014-15 financial year, you received meal allowances when you worked a shift over 9.5 hours or because you had your own accommodation. You can only claim deductions for the cost of meals if you work overtime or sleep away from home overnight to perform your work duties. Meals eaten during regular working hours are a private expense and you cannot claim a deduction for these costs. As a local FIFO employee who provides their own accommodation, you receive a meal allowance per day. Your accommodation is considered to be your home and therefore you are not travelling for work. Any meal expenses incurred are not deductible as they are private in nature. You receive a meal allowance for every day you work 9.5 hours. Based on the payments for a non-working public holiday, your standard day is 7.6 hours long. Therefore the meal allowance received is considered to be an overtime meal allowance. As you have received a meal allowance whilst working overtime, you are entitled to claim the cost of an overtime meal.