Tax time news

Income you must declare

You must declare the income you have received for each financial year on your annual tax return. Most income is pre-filled from information we receive from employers and financial institutions. However, there may be some information you will need to enter manually.

Regardless of whether your income is pre-filled or manually entered, you need to make sure it is accurate and complete. 

The types of income you need to declare are:

  • Employment income
  • Super pensions and annuities
  • Government payments and allowances
  • Investment income (including interest, dividends, rent and capital gains tax)
  • Business, partnership and trust income
  • Foreign income
  • Other income – including compensation and insurance payments, discounted shares under employee share schemes, and prizes and awards. 

You also need to declare any money or earnings you receive from:

  • Crowdfunding
  • The sharing economy and tax
  • Personal services income relating to labour-hire payments.

Deductions you can claim

Work-related expenses

To claim a work-related deduction:

you must have spent the money yourself and weren’t reimbursed
it must directly relate to earning your income
you must have a record to prove it.

If the expense was for both work and private purposes, you can only claim a deduction for the work-related portion. Work expenses reimbursed to you by your employer are not deductible.

We can seek information from your employer if we think you have claimed a deduction for an expense that you have already been reimbursed for. 

You may be able to claim a deduction for expenses that directly relate to your work, including:

  • Vehicle and travel expenses
  • Clothing, laundry and dry-cleaning expenses
  • Home office expenses – for employees working from home as a result of COVID-19, we have specific information available about home office expenses
  • Self-education expenses
  • Tools, equipment and other assets
  • Other work-related deductions
  • Employees (including casuals) can claim work-related expenses in the financial year they are incurred. This means if you start employment in June but don’t receive income until the next financial year, you can claim deductions for work-related expenses incurred in June.  
If you employ someone to assist you in your employment, generally you can’t claim a deduction for employing that person.

Other deductions You may also be able to claim a deduction for:

  • ATO interest – calculating and reporting
  • Cost of managing tax affairs
  • Gifts and donations
  • Interest charged by the ATO Interest,
  • dividend and other investment income deductions
  • Personal super contributions
  • Undeducted purchase price of a foreign pension or annuity