Working from home? We have some great tax news!
You can claim Working from Home costs on your online income tax return!
The ATO has been kind enough to introduce a new way to claim your home office expenses called the “COVID-19 Shortcut Method”. So we’ll run over the two ways you can claim your home office and what you need to do to claim it.
Option 1 – The Original Way
You can claim the original way if you were working from home before 1 March 2020, or if you would just prefer to use this method.
Home Office Running Expenses
This includes your heating, cooling & lighting plus depreciation of your office furniture.
To claim it, you need to be working from a designated office, you can’t be working from the couch while watching Netflix and eating your 12th meal for the day.
How do I claim it?
Keep a one-month diary or use your timesheets to track how many hours you worked. Enter in the number of hours you worked from home in your Gotax Online etax return, then we’ll do the rest.
Other usage
Like your Phone & Internet use
How do I claim this?
Keep a one-month diary for both tracking your calls, texts, and internet to work out your work use percentage.
Home Office Equipment
May include, but not limited to:
- Printers
- Computers & Laptops
- Phones (work portion only)
- Headphones & Webcams
If the cost of each individual item is under $300, claim the full expense outright. If it’s over $300, we’ll need to spread the tax deduction over a few years, we’ll do the calculations for this for you in the Tools & Equipment section of your Gotax Online etax Return.
Stationery & Other Consumables
Printer ink, Paper, Pens, Pencils, Highlighters, Staplers, etc.
Option 2 – The COVID-19 Shortcut Way
This can only be claimed from 1 March 2020 until 30 September 2020.
The shortcut method covers your home office running expenses, phone & internet use, office equipment, stationery basically everything for the home office.
Plus, you can be sitting at your couch doing your work while eating your 12th meal and watching Netflix and more than one person in your house can also claim Home Office if they are working from home.
How do I claim this?
Keep track of all the hours you were working from home, this can be in a diary or through your timesheets. We’ll have a special set up available for you to enter these hours into your Gotax Online etax Return to work out how much you can claim.
The claim your Home Office expenses you must:
- Keep your receipts
- Keep your logbooks
- Make sure your boss hasn’t reimbursed you; and
- The home office expenses must directly be related to you earning your income
Claim your Home Office Expenses on your income tax return with us now, it’s ridiculously easy!