Driving or delivering for an app
Uber, DiDi, DoorDash, Airtasker and the rest. When GST starts (for rides, from the first trip), how to bring your earnings statements in, and what Clementine does with them.
In the app: Account, Your data, Import; Tax, Income
Driving passengers, delivering food or doing tasks through an app is running a small business, even when it is a few hours a week. There is no invoice and no employer taking tax out. The app pays you, keeps its fee and sends a statement. This guide is about what that means for GST, and how Clementine reads those statements.
When GST starts
- Rides (Uber, DiDi, Ola and the like). Carrying passengers for a fare is ride-sourcing, and the ATO treats it like taxi travel: you need an ABN and must be registered for GST from your first trip, however little you earn. GST is then part of every fare, and you report it on a BAS.
- Delivering and tasks (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Menulog, Airtasker). These follow the ordinary rule: you must register for GST once your GST turnover reaches A$75,000 a year, and you can choose to register earlier.
- Both. If you drive passengers you are registered anyway, and GST then applies to the rest of your business sales too.
The ATO’s own pages: ride-sourcing registrations and GST when you provide services through a platform.
Bringing your earnings in
Download the earnings statement from the app’s driver or partner site as a CSV file. In Clementine open Account, then Your data, choose Import and pick Gig earnings statement.
- Say what each column is. No platform publishes its file layout, and they change, so Clementine suggests from the column names and you confirm: the date, gross earnings, fees or commission, GST collected and tips.
- Choose how to group it. By week, by month, or one record per row.
- Check the totals. For a week with A$119.60 in fares, A$7.00 in tips, A$10.88 of GST collected and A$29.91 in platform fees, the income recorded is A$115.72: fares and tips, less the GST in them, which was never yours. The fees are recorded as one deduction.
The income goes to Tax, Income, where it counts towards your tax estimate for the year. Importing is free on every plan.
Your car
For most drivers the car is the biggest cost. On Sole Trader you can mark fuel, servicing and your phone as part business, so only the business share is counted, and if you are registered for GST the GST in them shows as credits on the BAS worksheet. A car logbook and cents-per-kilometre claims are coming to Sole Trader.
Keep reading.
- Exporting your data
Download everything Clementine keeps for you as one zip: a spreadsheet for each kind of record, one JSON file and your receipt photos. Free on every plan.
- Getting set up
Guided setup takes you through fourteen short steps, and every one of them can be skipped and picked up later. What each step is for, and what to do first.