Tax For Amazon Flex Delivery Drivers

Updated 28th of June 2024

If you’re driving for Amazon Flex tax is probably one of your biggest uncertainties. Do Amazon Flex drivers need an ABN? What about GST for Amazon Flex? Is a logbook required? And what about tax deductions for Amazon Flex drivers and other delivery drivers?

I’ve written this blog post to be your complete guide to tax for Amazon Flex Delivery Drivers. It will explain how to register with the ATO as a delivery driver, and what tax deductions you can claim against your Amazon Flex income and other delivery income.

Looking for information on tax for UberEats and food delivery drivers? This article focuses on tax for Amazon Flex drivers, but everything in this article applies equally to all other types of delivery driving too. 

 

Do Amazon Flex Drivers Need An ABN?

Yes, all Amazon Flex drivers and general delivery drivers must have an ABN.

ABN stands for Australian Business Number, and all sole traders, businesses and companies in Australia must have one. Every individual in Australia already has a Tax File Number, but TFN’s are private and confidential. So an ABN serves as the public identification number of a business.

So if you drive for Amazon Flex, UberEats, DoorDash, MenuLog or any other delivery service, you must apply for an ABN from the Australian Taxation Office.

If you don’t have an Amazon Flex ABN number yet, DriveTax offer a free ABN Application Service as part of our free Uber Tax Info Pack. It includes your Amazon Flex ABN application lodged to the ATO for you, plus a free 5-day email course to explain the essentials of delivery taxes, AND a free bookkeeping spreadsheet for Amazon and delivery drivers.  If you’ve been driving for a while that’s okay, we can backdate your application for you as well. Register in just a few minutes here.

 

Do Amazon Flex Drivers Have To Register For GST?

If You ONLY Do Delivery, No Rideshare – GST Not Required 

If you’re a delivery driver, and you don’t do any rideshare, then you generally won’t have to register for GST. 

Rideshare drivers have specific rules whereby they have to register for GST from the first $1 they earn. But if you’re not doing rideshare, then these rules don’t apply. Instead, as a delivery driver, you only need to register for GST if you earn more than $75,000 per year on your ABN.

If you are only using your ABN for Amazon Flex and delivery driving and nothing else, then it’s unlikely that you’ll cross the $75,000 threshold. However if you also have other income on your ABN, such as contracting work or another business, then you may cross the $75,000 threshold, and then you must register for GST. If you are registered for GST, then GST applies to ALL income on your ABN, including your delivery income.

What about BAS’s? If you are not registered for GST then you do not have to lodge a BAS, they’re only for GST-registered businesses. 

If You Do Amazon Flex AND Rideshare – GST Required

If you drive for Amazon Flex AND UberX, or do any other ridesharing, then you must follow the rideshare rules, not the delivery rules. This means you must register for GST because of your ridesharing. This is because all rideshare drivers must register for GST from the first dollar they earn.

Here’s the catch: your GST registration applies to ALL your business activities, not just the rideshare driving. This means you’ll be paying GST on your delivery income AS WELL AS your ridesharing income.  Of course, to offset this you can claim back the GST on your delivery expenses to reduce your GST bill, but you’re still likely to be paying a portion of your delivery earnings to the ATO in GST. This is an unfortunate side-effect of doing both types of driving at once.

If this applies to you, just over to our Complete Guide to GST for Uber Drivers for more information.

 

How Do I Manage My Taxes for Amazon Flex?

Keep a Logbook Of Your Amazon Flex Driving

If you use your car for deliveries, and you want to claim your fuel, insurance, depreciation and other car expenses, you MUST have a valid ATO logbook. The logbook is required by the ATO as evidence of the percentage of car expenses you can claim.

Without a logbook, you’ll be restricted to the ‘cents per kilometre method’ to claim your car deductions. This method allows you to claim a maximum of 5,000km at a set rate, so your total tax deduction is limited. Here are the rates:

• 2022-2023: the rate is 78 cents per km, so your maximum claim is 5,000km x 78c = $3,900
• 2023-2024: the rate is 85 cents per km, so your maximum claim is 5,000km x 85c = $4,250
• 2024-2025: the rate is 88 cents per km, so your maximum claim is 5,000km x 88c = $4,400

If you only drive a little, then this might be fine for you. And of course it’s much easier to use the cents per km method rather than keeping a logbook and keeping all your fuel receipts. But if you drive a lot, the cents per km method will give you a much smaller tax deduction than claiming your actual expenses with the logbook method, which would mean you’d be paying tax to the ATO unnecessarily.

I strongly recommend keeping a 12-week logbook even if you think you might not need it. That way, at the end of the financial year you can calculate your delivery car deductions both ways, by the logbook method and the cents per km method, and go with whichever one gets you the biggest overall tax deduction.  

Here are the essentials of keeping a logbook:

• It must go for 12 weeks. It’s okay if the 12 weeks go past the 30th of June (e.g. you keep your logbook from May-July). But you must start before the 30th of June for it to count for the current year.
• You only need to make one logbook entry for each shift/session of driving, you don’t need to record individual deliveries. So for example, if you do a 4 hour shift with 30 deliveries, that’s just one entry in your logbook.
• You don’t need to record private/non-business trips.
• You must record the date, and the odometer reading of your car at the start and end of each shift/session of driving.
• You should start your logbook when you leave home or switch on your delivery app, and stop when you arrive back home or switch off the app. Your kms to and from home, and your kms in between deliveries can all be included.

Our Free Delivery Spreadsheet also includes an ATO-compliant Logbook Spreadsheet which does all the adding up for you and calculates your UberEats logbook percentage. It also includes an expense tracker spreadsheet to help you maximise your Amazon Flex tax deductions.

If you prefer a physical paper logbook we recommend the Zions Pocket Logbook, which you can buy from Officeworks for under $8. Using an app is also fine, as long as you are still recording your odometer readings at the start and end of every trip.

For more information about logbooks, visit our article on Keeping A Logbook For Uber.

Keep Records of your Amazon Flex Expenses

You’ll also need to keep records of your delivery expenses, so that you can claim these back on your end of year tax return. That can be in a spreadsheet, such as the DriveTax Spreadsheet, or just a collection of receipts.

The ATO will accept bank statement records if you don’t have receipts, however if you’re registered from GST you must have a tax invoice for expenses over $82.50 in order to claim for GST.  For expenses where you don’t receive a receipt, such as car washes, you can make a note of the date and amount of the expense yourself, keep a notebook in your glovebox for this. For expenses that come electronically, like your mobile phone bill, save them in a dedicated tax folder in your inbox or on your computer.

For more on what tax deductions you can claim, check out our blog post on Tax Deductions for Rideshare & Delivery Drivers.

Put Aside Money for your Tax Bill

If you make a profit from your delivery driving, you will need to pay income tax on that profit, so it’s a good idea to put aside some of your earnings in a separate bank account to save for your tax bill. This is different to what you may be used to where your employer tax out tax for you. As a sole trader you must manage your tax obligations, calculate your business income and save for your tax bill yourself.

The amount you need to save will depend on a variety of factors, such as your marginal tax rate, whether you’re driving full-time or part-time, your other sources of income, and your car and running costs, so everyone’s tax bill will be different. But as a very rough rule of thumb, put aside 10-15% if driving is your only source of income, or 20-25% if it is your second job.

Declare Your Amazon Flex Income and Expenses on your Tax Return

At tax time, on your end of financial year tax income return you’ll fill your Amazon Flex and other delivery income and all related expenses into the Business Schedule. This is part of your normal tax return, it is not a separate lodgment. If you made a profit, it becomes part of your taxable income, and you’ll pay tax on this at your marginal tax rate. Check out our Ultimate Guide to Tax for Rideshare & Delivery Drivers to learn more.

Note that even if you are below the tax-free threshold and will not have any tax to pay on your Amazon Flex income, you MUST still lodge an income tax return. This is because there are different rules for ABN holders than for regular employee-only tax returns. If you earn more than $1 on your ABN, you must lodge a tax return, even if you are below the tax-free threshold.

If you’d like help lodging your tax return, the DriveTax Express Tax service is designed especially for delivery and rideshare drivers.  By having a registered tax agent and Uber tax expert prepare your tax return you can make sure that every tax deduction is minimised and you get the best possible Uber tax refund. Visit our Tax Returns page to learn more.  

 

Summary

• If you haven’t already got one, get your UberEats ABN for FREE with DriveTax (and register for GST if you will also do rideshare driving)
• Download our free Tax Info Pack below for more info, tax tips and a free bookkeeping spreadsheet.
• Learn more about Keeping a Logbook for Rideshare & Delivery
• If you need help lodging your tax return, visit our Tax Returns page.

 

Thoughts? Questions? Leave a comment below and I’ll respond shortly!    – Jess

About the Author – Jess Murray CPA – Uber Accountant

Jess Murray is a CPA Accountant and registered tax agent. She’s been working in personal and small business tax for 15 years, and has been specialising in tax for Australian Uber Drivers for the last 7 years as the Director of DriveTax. She also teaches an online course called Understanding Uber Taxes.

Jess is on a mission to make taxes straightforward and manageable for Uber drivers across Australia.

The information in this article is general in nature and does not take into account your personal circumstances. If you’d like to know how this article applies to you, please contact us to arrange a consultation, or talk to your accountant. 

Other Posts You Might Like….