Leasing or buying: see which is cheaper in today dollars.
Grounded in the standards we hold, not invented. Every obligation Lease Buy Comparator attaches is our statement of a held clause, cited to it, read from Australia Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (Cth).
Grounded in the standards we hold32 held clauses citedCited to its clause
Lease Buy Comparator is a free browser tool for a grain or broadacre farmer who is weighing a six-figure machine. Paste the dealer quote, the bank loan rate and the dealer lease terms, plus a used alternative, and get a present-value comparison of lease, buy and used-buy as one bank-ready sheet.
Nothing is guessed. A blank rate, term, residual, tax rate or discount rate returns scope incomplete and names the field, so the sheet never defaults to the cheaper-looking option. Every tax figure comes from the tax office rules table held in the page and dated, and every rate, residual and effective life is labelled an assumption for your accountant to confirm. The sheet is a decision aid, not financial or tax advice, and it says so.
Grounded in the standards we hold: the Australia Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (Cth), 32 controls across 5 domains, cross-referenced to ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST. Open the Australia Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (Cth).
1. The dealer quote
Paste the quote as the dealer wrote it: make and model, cash price, options, delivery and pre-delivery charges, the trade-in allowance, the quote date and how long it is valid.
2. The bank loan offer
The rate, the term, any deposit, the establishment fee, how the repayments fall (monthly or seasonal), and how long the bank takes to approve and settle.
3. The dealer lease terms
The term, the payment, the residual (a percentage or a dollar figure), whether it is guaranteed, the hour cap and the overage rate.
4. The used machine
A used machine of the same class: year, hours, asking price, the repairs and maintenance budget a year, and what a private sale of the old machine would bring.
5. The farm and the tax profile
Entity, turnover, small business, the marginal rate, the after-tax discount rate, private use, the planned hours, the cropped hectares and the end-of-horizon value. Every one is your assumption.
More controls: a second dealer quote, a second finance offer, the rate sensitivity, two terms, the scenario name
A second dealer quote
Paste a second quote on the same spec, and the two changeover prices are shown side by side.
A second finance offer
Paste a second bank or dealer offer on the same machine, and the cheaper one in today dollars is named.
A blank rate, term, residual, tax rate or discount rate returns scope incomplete and names the field. It never fills in the cheaper-looking answer. Two terms are compared when you add compare term months | 84 to the loan box, and lean and peak months for a seasonal repayment are read from lean months and peak months.
What is it, and what is it not?
It is a present-value comparator for a farm machinery decision. You paste the dealer quote, the bank loan offer, the dealer lease terms, a used machine of the same class and your farm's tax profile. It returns the cost of each option in today dollars over the same planning horizon, the tax deduction timing year by year, the GST credit timing, the residual and the machine's value at the end, and it names the cheapest on your own figures and by how much.
It does not apply for the loan, sign the finance contract, lodge a tax return, prepare a depreciation schedule, register security, negotiate the price or decide the farm's structure. It does not read your bank or your accounting file: the first value is the paste. It never shows a guaranteed outcome, and it always says where a figure is your assumption rather than a fact.
How the comparison is built
Every option is discounted at your own after-tax cost of capital over the same horizon. The buy option deducts interest as paid plus depreciation at the stated effective life and method, apportioned for private use; the lease deducts the payments and carries the residual as a future cost; the used option carries its repairs budget and the opportunity cost of the cash. The GST credit is treated as a credit that lands in the following BAS quarter, not as cash on settlement day, so the lean-month gap is visible. The same inputs always give the same sheet.
Frequently asked questions
Is the comparison free?
Yes. Paste your own quote, loan and lease terms and the comparison is built on this page with no account and no sign-in. The paid plans add saving the scenario and downloading the year ledger: AUD 49 for one comparison or AUD 199 a year.
Is this financial or tax advice?
No. It is a decision aid. It shows what your own numbers do under the assumptions you state, in today dollars. Your accountant confirms the tax treatment and your lender decides the finance, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Where do the tax figures come from?
From the tax office pages and determinations on the instant asset write-off, the small business pool and effective lives, held in this page at build time and dated. The limit and the rates move, so the table carries the date it was read.
Why does the sheet show an end-of-horizon value for the bought machine?
Because buying ends with an asset and leasing ends with a residual to pay or a machine to hand back. A comparison that costs the lease residual but gives the owned machine no value is not honest, so the market value at the end of the horizon is an input and it feeds the present value.
Does the tool store my figures?
No. The sheet is built in your browser from the rules table that ships with the page, and nothing is stored unless you save a scenario to your own account.
Plans
Free
- The full comparison on this page
- The deduction timing and the GST credit timing
- The specimen sheet, already run
- Print the one-page sheet
- No account and no sign-in
One comparison
- Save the scenario and reopen it next week
- Download the year ledger as CSV
- A second dealer quote and a second finance offer side by side
- Keep the sheet against the machine's records
Annual
- Everything in one comparison
- Unlimited machines and scenarios for a year
- Contracting, two terms and the sensitivity runs kept
- Print a fresh sheet for every quote
Grounded in the standards we hold
This is not invented. Every obligation Lease Buy Comparator attaches is our statement of a clause we already hold, read clause by clause and cited to it, and every standard it reads is held and cross-referenced in the same library a compliance team uses.
- Australia Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (Cth)
32 controls across 5 domainsOpen
32 controls across 5 domains held in all.