Is my travel allowance taxed?

Your employer taxes 80% of it each month. A good logbook can win some of that back when you file.

If you get a travel allowance, your employer usually treats 80% of it as income for PAYE (20% if you mostly travel for work). That's a guess made upfront.

When you file, SARS works out what your business kilometres were really worth, using its cost table for your car's value, or your actual costs if you kept every slip. If that's more than the part that wasn't taxed, you get tax back.

What you need

• A logbook with each business trip: date, where to, why, and the kilometres.
• Your odometer reading on 1 March and at the end of February.
• Your car's value when you bought it, including VAT.

Driving from home to your normal office doesn't count as business travel. Trips to clients and other sites do.