Since the lockdowns of 2020-2021, the idea of working from home has become much more mainstream, with many still working from home at least some days of the week in 2024. As we head into the 2023/24 tax season, we offer this refresher on how to claim a tax deduction in your personal tax return, for expenses incurred while working from home. The Australian Taxation Office offers two methods to choose from, when calculating your working from home tax deduction; the fixed rate method an...

What does the Federal Budget mean for me? Treasurer Jim Chalmers has high hopes that his 2024 Federal Budget will rein in inflation earlier than expected, ease cost-of-living pressures and build a stronger economy in the future. It’s a Budget for the here and now, he says, but also for the decades to come. More than $8.4 billion has been allocated to quick-fix cost-of-living adjustments along with the previously announced Stage 3 tax cuts and the waiving of $3 billion in student debt...

New Increased Super Contribution Caps As the end of financial year gets closer, some investors are thinking about the most effective ways to boost their super balance, particularly with an increase in the caps on contributions from 1 July. The concessional contributions cap, which is the maximum in before-tax contributions you can add to your super each year without paying extra tax, is increasing to $30,000 from $27,500 in the new financial year.i The cap increases in line with average we...

Making Sure Your Deductions Don't Get Personal It can be easy to overlook your personal use of business assets when it comes to completing your business and self managed super fund tax returns but be warned, the ATO is taking an interest in this area. The ATO’s Small Business Random Enquiry Program found around 16 per cent of small businesses were either carelessly or deliberately overclaiming expenses in their tax returns. If business assets are used for a mix of business and pr...

Pre-Election Australian Federal Budget 2022-23 The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has handed down Australia’s pre-election Federal Budget for 2022-23, his 4th Budget.  The Budget pushes cash hand-outs into the wallets of Australians through temporary measures such as one-off payments and petrol excise cuts. With many measures tailing off in July-September 2022, it is clearly geared as an Election Budget, with the nation waiting for the Election date to be called.  Here is our br...