Petrol Excise duty saves 66c a litre

If you use petrol powered vehicles or equipment on your farm or orchard make sure you claim back your petrol excise duty refund of $0.66 per litre. If you use just 20 claimable litres per week and are not already making the claim then you are doing yourself out of a petrol excise duty refund of $686 a year. Too much hassle for you? Then get Catalyst to do all the hard work for you for a cost of $103 leaving a net refund due to you of $583. Petrol Excise Tax is unique to petrol and is NZTA’s way of getting the public to fund roading projects. The current rate is $0.66 per litre and it is scheduled to increase to $0.69 per litre in July 2015. Most farmers and orchardists will be aware that if you use any petrol powered equipment to get around or work your farm / orchard, you are able to claim back the excise duty component of the cost of that fuel because you are not using the vehicle or equipment on the road. The most common claims are for petrol powered farm bikes, ATV’s, tractors, chainsaws, lawnmowers, weedeaters, windmills, and hydraladas. From my experience most rural based clients do not bother to make the claim due to the time involved in collating the fuel invoices and filling out the relevant form. If this sounds like you then read on!   Recently I met up with the team from Catalyst who specialise in claiming petrol excise duty on behalf of the rural industry. They have automated the process as much as possible and providing your claim is for more than 150 litres, charge just 15% of the refund due to you for processing the application form on your behalf. Applications are filed quarterly so most farmers and orchardists will have no problem meeting the 150 litres threshold to qualify for the 15% fee.   Here’s how the Catalyst team do it:

You register via their website or by phone
You give the Catalyst team a quick breakdown of how you buy and use petrol for qualifying vehicles and equipment.
Catalyst either obtain copies of your fuel invoices directly from your supplier or you post the invoices to them in a prepaid envelop
Catalyst file an application for a refund of the Petrol Excise duty on your behalf and pay you the refund when it arrives less a 15% processing fee.

So if you use petrol on your farm or orchard of any significance I recommend you take the time to claim back your excise duty refund by completing the forms yourself visit the nzta.govt.nz website or by using the services of the Catalyst Team – visit their website