Tax time is right around the corner and this year the Australia Tax Office is cracking down on working from home expenses.
Last year more than 8 million Australians claimed work-related deductions in their tax return, with working-from-home expenses making up more than half of those claims.
Ashley Debenham from Etax Accountants unpacks everything you need to know before you lodge your tax return on The Briefing podcast:
Ashley Debenham from Etax Accountants told The Briefing the lodgers should be wary of copying and pasting expenses from last year. She said the ATO uses impressive data matching and machine learning that can detect this.
“The ATO is getting smarter and smarter each year with how they can identify people who are making incorrect claims,” Debenham said.
“One tip I do have is if you get to kind of this point of the year and you realize you don’t have kind of a record of every hour of every day you work from home, you can probably have a chat with your employer,”
Debenham said many employers will have payroll software that distinguishes between when you work from home, and they might be able to run a report.
“People forget to sweat the small stuff,” Debenham told The Briefing the types of small and big purchases that can be claimed.
“People never used to realise that you could claim a suitcase or a handbag, especially now with people doing the hybrid work from home work from the office.”
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