An expert has revealed what the ATO will be looking out for on your tax return this year – and there’s a warning for those who like to get sorted early.
Scrutiny of individual’s tax returns this financial year will include work-related expenses, rental deductions and capital gains from cryptocurrency, property and shares, the Australian Taxation Office has revealed.
But it has advised Aussies not to rush to file their tax return in early July, even if they’re expecting some bonus cash to boost their bank balance.
The ATO often see lots of mistakes in early July as people rush to get their tax returns done and forget to include income from banks, dividends from shares, sharing economy platforms and cryptocurrency exchange.
This information will be automatically included in your tax return by the end of July. To avoid mistakes and refund delays, it’s best to wait for this information to be automatically included. If you want to lodge earlier, you must take care to manually add all your income.
With a lot of people working from home this financial year due to the pandemic, the ATO has advised a temporary shortcut method for claiming working from home expenses will be available.
This allows people with working from home expenses to claim an all-inclusive rate of 80 cents per hour for every hour people work from home, rather than needing to separately calculate costs for specific expenses and apportioning the work and private component.
However, people must have a record of the number of hours they worked from home like using a timesheet.
There are three golden rules when claiming work related expenses, you must have spent the money and not been reimbursed, the expenses must directly relate to earning your income and must not be private in nature and you must have a record to prove it, like a receipt.