Car Lease Adelaide

The best deals on a car lease Adelaide residents can access, with faster, easier applications and better tax incentives.

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, updated on July 4th, 2023       

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Car Lease Adelaide

Car Lease Adelaide – How it all Works

If you’re looking for a car lease, Adelaide based, and you’ve got the time to compare options, there are some great deals out there. Among all the vehicle finance products, car leases provide some of the best tax and GST advantages available. Payments are 100% tax-deductible for the entire lease term. Yet, there are more benefits to a car lease than just that. End of term options can be tailored to your specific business goals and requirements, interest rates to finance brand new and late-model cars are relatively low, and you can access fully maintained car lease deals that take the administration costs and complications out of running a whole fleet, or even a single vehicle.

Car Lease Adelaide - Comparing the Best Deals

There’s one main problem with scanning the whole lending marketplace and identifying the optimal finance deal for your business – Australia has many lenders, and there’s a multitude of products. When you run a business, it’s impractical to seek out every option, but doing so can save you a significant amount of money. Savvy instantly compares lenders based on the unique needs of your business. We partner with more than twenty-five specialist car lease and finance lenders, so finding your ideal match is just a case of finding out a bit about your targets, how you operate, and how you manage cash flow. That’s why Australian businesses come to Savvy – to find faster, more tax-effective and cheaper car finance solutions.

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Why choose Savvy for your car lease?

All of Your Adelaide Car Lease Options Explained

Tax, GST, and End of Lease Benefits of a Finance Lease

Finance leases are hugely popular across many sectors within Australia’s business community, and two of the biggest reasons for that are the tax and GST savings on offer:

That’s possible because the lender buys the vehicle and remains the registered owner until the end of the term – so they claim back the GST. During the agreement, businesses can claim lease payments as a cost of doing business.

Finance lease agreements run for anything between one and five years and give you three end of lease options. Firstly, you can pay off the residual and own the vehicle outright. Secondly, you can choose to refinance the residual and keep leasing, or thirdly, you can trade the car in and start a new lease.

  • Payments throughout the lease term are tax-deductible
  • Payments are based on the ex-GST value of the car

How an Operating Lease Can Help You Reduce Your Administration Load and Tax Liability

The primary reason so many companies and sole traders use an operating lease is to reduce their tax bill. Payments for the entire duration of the lease are fully tax-deductible, but that isn’t the sole attraction.

Operating leases are pretty flexible too. They last between one and five years and give you two end of lease options. There’s no residual with an operating lease, and no obligation to buy. You can either make an offer to the lender at the end of the lease and own the vehicle, or choose to walk away and look for other car finance.

Operating leases are like fully maintained, long-term car rental. All the running costs get bundled with the lease payments, so they involve zero administration your end. Those operational expenses are also fully tax-deductible.

SA Car Lease Alternative – Chattel Mortgage Car Finance

Chattel mortgage car finance is a commercial product with significant cash flow benefits. Similar to leases, its main strengths come from the tax and GST benefits, but ownership is structured differently:

  • You get to claim all GST on the purchase price back as soon as you next file a business activity statement
  • There’s no GST on the residual or repayments
  • The interest on payments is tax-deductible.
  • Terms run between one and seven years
  • You own the (mortgaged) vehicle from the start, meaning you can claim depreciation as per ATO guidelines.

At the end of the chattel mortgage term, you get a clear title on the car, so it’s a great option if you want to use a vehicle for longer than a typical lease finance agreement lasts – if you’re a local business and you don’t drive many kilometres, for example.

Car Finance in Adelaide for Private Buyers: Car Loans

Car loans are a fantastic option for private car buyers. If your employer doesn’t offer salary sacrificing, they’re probably your best alternative. Car loans run between one and seven years; you can buy new or second-hand cars, and use dealers or private sellers. They’re secured car finance, so repayments get fixed for the duration of the loan and interest rates remain relatively low too.

You can use a deposit with a car loan, but it’s not compulsory. You’re also free to use a trade-in when you buy your car. There’s no residual with a car loan agreement, so you pay the loan down to zero over the term.

Answers to Frequently Asked Car Lease Adelaide Questions

What’s better for my business – an operating lease or finance lease?

If you want to upgrade vehicles more frequently, completely offload the risks of ownership and disposal, and you’d benefit from bundling running costs and admin into the finance package, an operating lease is probably your ideal solution. Finance leases generally don’t include operating costs and administration, although the term durations are similar and even though there’s an obligation to pay the residual down, you can still upgrade your car at that point.

Can I claim depreciation with a car lease?

The outstanding financial benefits of using a car lease are connected with GST and tax. While you can’t claim depreciation, you can save tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a car lease term.

What are my bad credit car lease options?

It’s challenging to get a competitive car lease if you’ve got bad credit. Lenders operate based on risk. If you have a poor credit history, at best, that’s going to mean high car lease interest rates. Savvy works with lenders who offer competitive bad credit car finance, however. Because of the risk element, it’s often better to look past car leases and consider secured car loans or chattel mortgage finance. That’s because with both those methods, the lender uses your vehicle as collateral against your borrowing until you finish paying the loan back – and that keeps the risk and interest rates lower.

What’s a residual?

With a car lease, the residual gets set according to ATO rules and it’s based on the term of the lease. That’s because it’s there to account for the vehicle’s depreciation during the term. It’s why lease payments tend to be lower than with a straight car loan – because you only pay down the value of the car for the period you use it. The residual covers the rest from the lender’s point of view. It’s worth remembering, however, that chattel mortgages differ from a vehicle loan in that sense, and you get the same pay down benefit from a properly set residual as with a car lease.

Can I lease a car if my financials aren’t up to date?

If you’re waiting on your latest tax return or other financial records, Savvy’s consultants will likely direct you toward a low doc car finance solution, which is usually based on the chattel mortgage model and itself comes with some excellent tax advantages.

Why should I use a car finance broker?

Apart from the obvious advantage of canvasing a broader selection of lenders and products, Savvy’s expert car finance consultants can guide you through the car lease process, help with documentation and qualification requirements, and generally navigate applications more quickly. That means you jump fewer hoops and end up with more time to do what really matters– which is develop your business.

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