FBT: Motorbikes and Scooters

Are Motorbikes, pushbikes, E-bikes, and scooters exempted from FBT? Let’s find out! Paul discusses the difference between each vehicle and why or why not they may be exempt or not exempt from FBT.

Date published: 21 April 2022

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TRANSCRIPT

Motorbikes, Push Bikes, and E-bikes

Let's start with motorbikes because I've been around for longer. I can see absolutely no good policy reason why I could ride a motorbike to and from work each day, and there be no FBT on the provision to the motorbike, if I'm limiting the use of the bike to home to work travel, because that's what's called work related travel in a defined term, home to work. Now, I could ride it once or twice a year for other things, but basically it's just going to be home to work and there's no FBT.

Why? Where's the good policy reason? I've absolutely no idea, but it's there. Now, this came about back in the fossil fuel vehicle days, and so maybe it was no big deal. So it doesn't make a good policy, but nonetheless, it's there.

But what's happens since those fossil fuel days is we've moved into E-vehicles. And so when we say why is a motorbike exempt, the answer is it is a motor vehicle. It's got a motor and it's a vehicle designed to travel on roads. So you drill all the way down through the through the legislation. Then you say, well, what about E-bikes? Because E-bikes look just like the bike that I normally ride on a weekend, but they've got an electric motor in them. That means that it's a motor vehicle, so I could salary sacrifice an E-bike long as I don't ride it on the weekends, as long as I'm riding to and from work, I can salary sacrifice that, and the releasing companies out there that specialize in leasing E-bikes just to make this easier so I could salary sacrifice and E-bike take it to and from work, no FBT. But if I tried to salary sacrifice my Pinarello my conventional bike that I ride on the weekends, full FBT. So what this is saying really is that the current legislation current policies they were great back in the olden days. And our fossil fuel days last century that sort of time, but they just haven't kept up with changes in consumer behavior. 

From a policy perspective, you've really got to ask how come there's an FBT exemption on an E-bike but not on a pushbike when they look exactly the same? Often you get to look really, really closely to pick the difference between the between the two and the answer is I can't see a good policy reason between them. 

There we are. Whenever we come up with this craziness, there's an opportunity, and so it's nice then we can make informed decisions once we identify the craziness, the opportunities, 

Scooters

I mentioned E-bikes. If I was to ride a scooter and unless people have been living in a cave, they'll notice that there's scooters all around town and park and all sorts places. I can't salary sacrifice a scooter, but I can salary sacrifice an E-scooter if travel is limited to work related, travel to and from work. Why should I be able to salary sacrifice and e-scooter but not a regular scooter? The answer is who knows? But that's just the way it is. Why? It's a motor vehicle. So again, the choice is there.