Financial Planning for Taxi and Rideshare Drivers

We’re invested in your long-term success. What we do is personal, and we take it personally.

Your financial decisions connect, so we consider the parts of your financial life that are relevant to the advice you need:

• Property & Investing
• Career & Income
• Tax Strategy
• Insurance & Protecting Your Family
• Super & SMSF
• Wealth & Investments
• Life Events & Changes
• Business & Wealth
• Legacy & Future Wealth
• Retirement Planning

This is how we help you make decisions today with your longer-term goals in view.

Everybody’s situation is different, so we listen first, understand what matters to you and explain your options clearly before we make a recommendation.

The ATO treats ride-sourcing as taxi travel for GST, so a driver needs an ABN and GST registration before their first trip, whatever they earn, unless they’re an employee. The usual $75,000 turnover threshold doesn’t apply to it.

The ATO also says GST can be reported monthly or quarterly, but not annually. You can register online, or a registered tax or BAS agent can register you and lodge each BAS.

We can plan with you how much of each week’s fares to set aside for GST and tax, so that money is ready before each BAS is due.

Your accountant and financial adviser bring different expertise to the same decisions. Your accountant can advise on tax reporting, structures and consequences; we help you plan how cashflow, debt, super, investments and protection work towards your goals. We can coordinate before important decisions.

What an accountant does

• Prepares and lodges tax returns, BAS and financial statements
• Advises on tax structures such as companies, trusts and partnerships
• Manages bookkeeping, payroll and ATO compliance
• Provides tax advice on the consequences of a transaction

What a financial adviser does

• Sets a long term strategy across retirement, investing and cash flow
• Builds wealth from early in a working life, starting with cash flow, a first home and super
• Recommends specific super funds, investments and personal insurance
• Operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence, which is required to give personal advice on financial products
• Handles retirement planning, Centrelink and aged care strategy, and estate planning considerations

Professional roles and authorisations matter. We provide financial advice within our authorisations and work with your accountant for specialist tax advice and lodgements.

Where they work together

• Tax position. Your accountant confirms your marginal rate, deductions and carried forward losses, which shapes decisions on super contributions, investment structures and the timing of asset sales.
• Business and entity structures. Your accountant advises on the structure itself and your financial adviser works within it for investments, insurance and succession planning.
• Cash flow. Your accountant’s figures can help us understand what’s available for debt repayment, protection and longer-term goals.
• Before key decisions. We can coordinate with your accountant on contributions, asset sales and other material choices in time to consider relevant tax consequences.

How you’re engaged decides it, and where you drive matters too. If you drive a taxi on bailment in metropolitan Sydney, a NSW contract determination gives permanent bailees paid annual leave, sick leave and long service leave, and casual bailees no paid leave. Elsewhere, your bailment agreement is the place to start, and Fair Work can help with questions about your rights at work.

If you’re employed as a hire car or chauffeur driver, an industry award for passenger transport by car may cover you, and Fair Work can check it. Whether anyone has to pay your super is a question for the ATO or an accountant.

We can plan with you around the leave and super you receive.

We start from a slower week rather than your busiest one. From there, the costs that come first are set aside:

• GST, if you’re registered, and tax on your earnings
• A pay-in or platform fees
• Car repayments or rental, fuel, tolls and servicing
• A buffer for days without fares

What’s left after those can go towards household bills and goals of your own. You decide the split, and we can work through it with you, so stronger weeks have a purpose before the fares come in.

Start with the repayment or rental, set against a slower week of fares rather than your busiest. Then add what the car costs to run: fuel, servicing, registration and car insurance, which a general insurance broker or the insurer can explain. A broker can compare lenders and arrange any finance.

The ATO lists depreciation on a car you own and lease payments on a leased car among ride-sourcing deductions, so an accountant can explain how each choice is treated. A loan also changes what anyone relying on you would be left with, so life and TPD amounts are worth weighing against it. We can work through the budget and cover with you, and the insurer decides on any application.

We can plan from where you stand today, with the licence as one part of the picture. The ATO notes that state governments announced reforms, including industry assistance payments to taxi licence holders, and the same rules apply to payments made to hire car and limousine licence holders. If you received a payment and leave the industry, it may be included in working out a capital gain or loss when you sell or surrender the licence. An accountant can work through the tax.

Because what a licence could fetch isn’t certain, we’d build your retirement on super and savings first and count the licence last. Together, we can work out what regular contributions and savings could add from here.

An earnings summary is a useful record of your fares and fees, and it’s handy for an accountant at tax time.

A financial adviser looks at what that money does next: a budget built on your slower weeks, money set aside for GST and tax, your own super, cover for the way you drive and goals such as a home or retiring. We plan with the figures you already have, and an accountant can prepare and lodge your tax return.

Several sources may help, depending on how you’re engaged and what you hold:

• Paid sick leave, if you’re an employee with leave, or a permanent bailee in metropolitan Sydney under a NSW contract determination
• Workers compensation, through a state, territory or Commonwealth scheme. Each scheme sets who qualifies, and some schemes count some taxi or hire car drivers as workers
• Cover through a bailment agreement or platform, if there is any, which the operator, platform or its insurer can explain
• Income protection, if you hold it, which can pay part of your income after a waiting period
• Your own savings

Car and CTP insurance are general insurance, which a broker or the insurer can explain. We can plan with you how these fit together.

Yes. We’d start with when you’d like to stop driving, and whether fewer shifts along the way would suit you. If you pay your own super, your contributions can be part of the plan from today.

We’d build the plan on super and savings, with a taxi licence or plate, if you hold one, counted last, as its value isn’t certain. You can read more about our retirement advice.

We’re a national service, so you can meet with us by phone or video from anywhere in Australia. We also have offices in three cities:

• Sydney: offices in Sydney CBD, Parramatta, Seven Hills, Ingleburn and Narellan, servicing areas including the City of Sydney, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, North Shore, Northern Beaches, Sutherland Shire, Blacktown, Liverpool, Campbelltown and all surrounding suburbs.
• Melbourne: our St Kilda Road office, servicing areas including the City of Melbourne, Port Phillip, Boroondara, Monash, Casey, Wyndham and all surrounding suburbs.
• Brisbane: our Eagle Street office, servicing areas including Brisbane City, Moreton Bay, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and all surrounding suburbs.

Yes. Whether you’ve just started on an app, drive a taxi on bailment or have held a licence for years, we can start from where things are now.

There’s no cost for the initial conversation. Any advice after that is a paid service, with its scope and fee agreed with you in writing first.

It helps to bring your latest tax return or BAS, a statement from each super fund and the papers for your car loan or lease, if you have one. Insurance policies and a bailment agreement are handy too, if you hold them. We can meet in person or online.