Ideas & Stories

Tax Deductible Meals for hard working business owners

We thought that you might like to know…

Yes, it is possible to have any meal that you provide for you (and any of your employees) to be:

  1. Fully tax deductible,
  2. GST claimable, and best of all
  3. FBT does not apply.

There are a couple of rules that you will need to be aware of, but in summary:

  1. Your business needs to be a Company or Trust so that directors are deemed to be an employee (almost every one of our clients operates through one of these),
  2. The meals must be consumed on-site at the business premises (it can be breakfast, lunch and/or dinner … if it’s all three, you are working too hard),
  3. Must be a ‘functional’ not ‘social’ meal. Hence no alcohol. (adding beer automatically reclassifies the meal as ‘social’ … also makes OH&S compliance more of a headache)
  4. For employees only. (guests, customers and clients are excluded from the arrangement … they have their own set of rules).

So, if you are like most business owners and doing way too many hours in your office, and particularly if a few of your staff are also staying back to help get things done, ordering Uber Eats for breaky, morning tea, lunch or dinner might actually cost you around half what you might think.

Pretty good for morale too. Perhaps steer clear of the sugary stuff (that is just our tip, not advice from the ATO).

Want to know more, just pick up the phone.