Quote:
Originally Posted by GasOLane
A couple of sentences in the article are curious...
"James Bailey holds a notice from the Department of Transport threatening him with a $2200 fine if he continues to accept payment for driving Year 12 students to formals in his 1970 Holden HT Premier."
"We just do this as a hobby because taking kids to formals and doing weddings is fun."
and
"We're not doing it to make a living - we just want to cover our costs. We spend about three hours cleaning our car before each wedding."
So, which is it. Is he charging them to take them or is he doing it for fun and free.
If he's charging them then yes, he should have the appropriate accreditation.
And if they're advertising the service on Facebook they're stupid!!
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I'm no tax expert, but there's a statement about earning from hobbies on the ato website. It's not compulsory to declare it as income up to 5k. Of course, this doesn't include insurance and what not, but if its a hobby, you don't need to register as a business (therefore the car is technically not being used for business purposes). It's a grey area in that respect.
The other thing is, he hasn't stated he doesn't charge them when saying he does it as a hobby and for fun. Covering costs is fair, and isn't making a profit, so it's not a business as outlined above.
Similarly, I teach piano as part of my hobby, I don't get much for it as I only have three students and charge bugger all. What I charge covers my own lessons. I don't have to declare anything due to my low income from it, I do it from home and I'm not a registered business because of it. I don't need to change my insurance because I'm not a business so my house is still used for residential purposes only. If and when I start earning more than 5k I'll set up properly, until then, like these guys, it's a hobby and I'm covering costs.
*waits for the Feds to knock on my door*