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Written by : Dallas Dage |
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i'm sebastian james do not do your tax return right now why because the government tells you not to this is an actual email i received from the australian government just the other day hi sebastian oh my god you've learned my real name tax time starts soon we made it easier by pre-filling your tax return information with employees banks government agencies health funds and third parties we'll tell you when your tax return is ready for you to review and lodge so the ato is telling you i am getting all this information from these third parties from your bank from your employees mandatorily all this information must be submitted to the ato the atl has it already it may as well pre-fill your tax return with that information it does two things first of all it saves you time pre-filling secondly it's proof that you have to include them because the ata knows about them and will fill them on your tax return so that you don't miss out on any income that the ato may know about but all this takes time and that is why although the financial year has finished it's gone you should not yet submit your tax return because the ato does not have all that information when will they have it what are the dates that i need to know about submitting my tax return well here's what you need to do wait for us to tell you when your tax return has been pre-filled before using my tax what is my tax i'll let you know this will usually happen between the 23rd of august to the 6th of september you can include other income and deductions when you review your pre-filled information on my tax so there is this product called my tax which i shall explain to you shortly it shall be pre-filled we know about that part but if there's any things income or expenses that aren't there already and there may be some then you just add them to the existing pre-filled information it's really quite straightforward by waiting for us to pre-fill your information it will be easier to complete your tax return and you're more likely to get it right the first time and not need to make changes later do you know what they're absolutely right much easier to do your tax return now than it was five ten years ago in australia and things are getting easier almost by the year all right first things first what's the cutoff date when do i absolutely need to have my tax return done by because you're making me wait if you're lodging your own tax return you need to lodge it by the 31st of october each year so it's now july we've got august september and then all of october so you've got quite a while if the 31st of october falls on a weekend the due date to lodge your tax return is the next business day after the 31st of october what if i'm using a tax agent though aren't the dates somewhat different kind of yes and kind of no if you choose to use the services of a registered tax agent you will generally have special lodgement schedules and can lodge returns for clients later than the 31st of october that part you might know about however if you're using a registered tax agent you need to engage them before the 31st of october so the 31st of october is a magical date why because you need to have your tax done or at least have gone to a tax agent and have that process started what if you don't do it by the 31st of october can you run down to your tax agent and say oh i can lodge it later no you can't you have to have that started by that date whether you do it yourself and complete it or whether you start it with a tax agent that date there things must have happened by so many dates let's look at a tax timetable the end of the year is the 30th of june first of july is the start of the next financial year so it's due by the 31st of october if you lodge it you can lodge it anytime between the 1st of july although we suggest that you wait for the pre-fills and the 31st of october if an agent lodges it you need to start by the 31st of october when do you need to complete by well the agent should know that should you lodge your own tax or should you use a tax agent it's so confusing no it's really not 90 of people regular people like yourself should be doing your own taxes why because it's getting easier and easier and the government is helping you tax agents or you doing your own tax well if you're an employee probably about 90 of you should be doing your own tax because most of it's very very straightforward if you're a share investor then you should be doing your own tax 90 of you if you have a simple business like you're a sole trader so the business is under your own name then you should be basically doing your own tax ninety percent of you if you have a complex business well by all means see an accountant the government is actively trying to save you money by making it easier to do your own tax how do i know because they've included this link in the email i just read to you and here it is lodge attacks online if you click on that link it will take you to access to my tax what is my tax is that my tax i have to pay no it's kind of like a brand name my gov website which i hope you've got already if not get on to it mygov is a portal that allows you to connect to the commonwealth government so centerlink ato medicare things like that so you've got your mygov account you link your tax information to my gov and that gives you my tax so whenever we talk about the my tax small my big t axe then we're really talking about the mygov website and here is what it looks like there is a login information and i will take you through the first thing i do is enter my login details click on a link or two and this allows me to submit my tax for this financial year so basically i go ahead and click on it and that's it i have started the tax return process to continue i would just fill in the information and basically it's as simple as that our online services for individuals is available to access through mygov or the ato app mygov my tax is there any setup i need to do to link these two the answer is yes you need to create a mygov account a link to the ato with the online product you can access my tax so there's no need to download any software it's really that straightforward you have your mygov account you go in and then you enter certain information about your tax return what information is that will be things like your tax file number you'll need to know a couple of things about your last tax return things like the lodgement date and the lodgement serial number things like that that you can get from your last tax return pop them in and whammo the two are linked now through the mygov website you'll have an access to the ato and it's think of it all as really as mygov and that is where your tax return will sit coming up soon i will have a video which will take you step by step through the my tax process so that you can learn how to do your own taxes online so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss out using my tax you can lodge your tax return on a computer which is what i do a smart phone or a tablet there we go you're all covered so what are the benefits of using my tax in particular well we can pre-fill most i
Thanks for your comment Tonita Reihl, have a nice day.
- Dallas Dage, Staff Member
with many people working from home over the last couple of years the tax office has made some changes to the ways that you can claim tax deductions on your work from home expenses let's take a look tax time is approaching so let's take a closer look at your tax return and how you can claim deductions to cover the added cost that goes with working from home okay so there's three main methods that can be used for claiming your work from home home office expenses we're going to take a look at each of the three methods and the beauty is you can calculate your deduction on all of the three methods then choose the one that gives you the biggest claim now the first one we'll look at is the shortcut method this one was introduced specifically for all the people that were forced to work from home during the covered pandemic it was all about making a little bit easier for the common person to claim their tax deductions and this covers all of your extra added costs that comes with working from home such as computers uh maybe desks chairs electricity gas for heating your phone your internet all of that stuff what you do is you work out your hours that you're working from home over the course of the year so you'd work out a representative four week period multiply that across the year and then you would claim 80 cents for every hour that was worked from home it's an all-inclusive rate so once you claim the 80 cents per hour for work from home time you cannot then go and then claim your phone separately or depreciate your computer separately once you use the shortcut method that covers everything okay so you need to keep a record of your hours and how you come to your numbers and then you do that for a what they call a representative four-week period so a normal four-week period but then say if you took four weeks off annual leave you'd have to adjust that into your rate because that four-week period of working full-time would no longer be representative if you only work 48 out of the 52 weeks the year so this is by far the easiest method once you've worked out your hours you just multiply it by 0.8 for your 80 cents and that's it that's your claim from work from home it covers everything now the next method is the fixed rate method and this is calculated at 52 cents per hour to cover your home office running expenses so it covers your depreciation of your office furniture like your desk or your chair it covers your utility bills of your home office your gas for heating say your electricity for heating for lighting for running your appliances for your air conditioner that kind of thing it also covers cleaning costs of your home office area the main way it differs from the first method that we went through and the reason that it is a lower rate being 52 cents on the dollar compared to 80 cents in the dollar is that it means then once you've claimed that 52 cents per hour you can then claim your phone and internet the work portion of that you can claim that again separately on top of this you can also claim depreciation of office equipment such as your computer or your printer you can claim the work portion of that separately on top of this as well now you need to keep a record of your hours from the work from home portion the 52 cents in the hour portion maybe a diary some correspondence from your employer something like that something to back up your claim you also need to keep receipts for your internet for your phone that kind of thing your computer your printer these other things that you're claiming separately and you also need to keep copies of your phone accounts because you have to be able to back up how you came to your number for example saying that your phone was 60 work use you're gonna go through your phone bill to work that out now the last method we'll look at is the actual cost method now to use this method you have to have incurred extra cost as a result of working from home so extra electricity uh you have to buy a new desk you have to buy a new chair they have to be expensive that you would not have occurred if you were not working from home if you share your house with other people if someone else is in your work area say your work area is the lounge room if someone else a member of the household is in the lounge room watching tv while you're working in the same room then by these rules you cannot claim the electricity or anything associated with that because these costs were not additionally incurred if you went there working your housemate was still there watching tv the electricity was still getting used so that means there's no extra cost which means there is no extra claim it has to be additional costs that would not have been incurred if you were not working from home so make sure your work area has you in it and no one else this method really works best with a separate home office room if you don't have a home office if you're in shared spaces with other members of the household your additional running expenses and therefore your deductions are going to be minimal so you can claim depreciation on office equipment and furniture that costs over 300. if this piece of equipment like a computer has an effective life for example of four years then you claim the work percentage of that computer over the four years not in the first year itself it has to be depreciated over that period of time but if it's under 300 bucks then you can claim it in the first year you can claim cleaning of the home office area but you have to apportion it as a percentage of the whole house so if your home office is five square meters and the whole house is 50 square meters then you'd only be claiming 10 of that cost now for your heating calling and lighting and this one is going to confuse people but the guidance from the tax office is that you need to pull out your electricity bill and you need to work out the cost per unit of electricity or you don't need to work it out it'll be shown on your bill and then you need to work out the average units per hour which is the power consumption per kilowatt hour per appliance i know you're confused already and then you take that power consumption per hour and multiplied by each appliance for the number of hours that it is used during the year confused so am i and of course you can claim all of your office consumables so this is all of the equipment basically that is below three hundred dollars so mouse keyboard uh maybe some like a desk lamp or something like that staplers stationary all that stuff you got your phone and your internet so what you have to do here is work out a work-related percentage over a four-week representative period you'll go through your phone bill and you'll highlight all the items that are related to work and then you take the number there and you divide that by the total use to work out a percentage there for the internet you'll work out a proportion of the total expense based on how many hours you use it for work and as always guys you need to keep good records here so you're going to have to keep all your receipts all your bills you're going to have to substantiate how you came up
Thanks Cristobal your participation is very much appreciated
- Dallas Dage
About the author
I've studied ethnomusicology at Purchase College, State University of New York in Purchase and I am an expert in aesthetics (outline) / philosophy of art. I usually feel touched. My previous job was dentist I held this position for 14 years, I love talking about linguistics and bushcraft. Huge fan of Jennifer Lawrence I practice equestrian: dressage and collect fabric and textiles.
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