Employment contract: Travel expenses query

[sarens]

 

Hi all,

I have been recently offered a role in a manufacturing company but have some doubts about a travel expenses clause they have included in the contract.

The role would be as an engineer manager and the main location would be the city however one day a week (or more) I would have to travel to another regional office

which is about 100 Km from the city.

 

One of the clause states :

 "For travel between sites in the State, it is expected that you will use your own vehicle and your base salary
includes an amount for your travel expenses"

Now just a once a week travel to the regional site would cost me about 5000$ gross per year, so make it bi-weekly and it would be 10.000$ add some other travels and it could go up.

Now I am still on a good salary (140K) but it's like negotiating a number only to find that in reality it is 5-10K less or more, not considering that they have said no to a number of other lilttle things. What annoys me is that when we discussed salary they never mentioned there would be an allowance included , it was just a surpirse in the contract. 

I wonder if this is normal for a higher salary. I have not worked in Australia for some years and I am not sure about what is considered normal.

Would you think this to be common practice for a manager salary in Australia ??  or are they just playing with numbers?

Thanks,

Sar
 

[amibovered]

$5000 a year, for a 200klm a week round trip seems like a lot, how have you come to that amount?

[sarens]

3 hours ago, amibovered said:

$5000 a year, for a 200klm a week round trip seems like a lot, how have you come to that amount?

Well I do not have  a car, so a return train ticket is 44$ and taxi from the train station to the working site is about 13$. So in one day it all adds to about 70$.

In 48 weeks is about 3360$ which is equivalent to a gross salary of  about 4730$.  If I travel sometime more than once a week , I would  easily get to 5000$.

Edited September 21, 2017 by sarens

[NickyNook]

Travel expenses for work are usually tax-deductible so the net cost to you will be less than you actually spend. Depending on your marginal tax rate, you could get up to 37% of your travel costs refunded to you at the end of the tax year.

https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Income-and-deductions/Deductions-you-can-claim/Vehicle-and-travel-expenses/Travel-between-home-and-work-and-between-workplaces/

Does your employer know that you don't/won't drive? If you're relying on public transport to get to these regional sites, are you going to be able to get there at short notice? How often do the trains run? 

[kevsan]

is a car mentioned anywhere else in the contract.

When in the UK, some contracts i had were explicit that i needed to have a car, and some insisted that it was less than 4 years old. You might be ok, but that would be extra costs you might need to add in as well.