Preparing taxes and filing returns are really “taxing” task. But, it takes little time to overlook your finances and go miles to reap the benefit of deductions.
The Australian Taxation Office has billions of funds in their account to pay back to genuine taxpayers. They just demand to improve your thinking and be a little more creative. ATO can find and detect your expenses and income details like unclear wages, bank interest received, etc. But there is no way to alarm regarding tax deductions. You need to take either assistance from professional accountants like tax accountants gold coast or do more research work.
Here, we also have some things to remember while filing a tax return that helps you to save the highest taxable income:
- Claim All Possible Deduction
- Use Your Receipts
- Do Some Charity
- Clear Your Bills Before The Due Date
- Super Funds Are Ideal
- Check Your Present Investments
- Do Not Ignore Health Insurance
1. Claim All Possible Deduction
Tax deductions are the easiest way to save a large chunk on the taxable amount. These work-related deductions are claimable from the government that your employee had not paid for the actual expenses incurred. Therefore, claiming them from gross taxable income reimburse your amount and ensure you are legally entitled to. Some of them are:
- Expenses paid on vehicles and traveling expenses – apart from work to home car of fuel charges. These are related to work only.
- Amount spend on Clothing, dry-cleaning, and laundry.
- Overtime meals.
- Fees paid for self-education.
- Tools equipment purchased in a business
- Work-related deductions.
- Phone expenses for work and home both.
2. Use Your Receipts
Saving all receipts and use them for tax deductions is not a waste of time. It will help you to save hundreds to thousands of dollars for refunding income and saving taxes. Therefore, buy a folder and label receipt in chronological order. Here, we have some tips for you:
- Keep all receipts in the tax folder whenever you make all work-related expenses.
- If you are working from, save all invoices of phone, power, water, internet and other utilities in a dairy.
- If you buy a property, keep all payments receipts ready.
- If donated something to charity, keep the charity folder up-to-date to save tax.
- Traveling for a work meeting, write down dates and mileage in a dairy. Do not include home to work distance.
If you are not sure whether particular expenses are deductible or not, hire a consultant for help.
3. Do Some Charity
Donating for some noble cause and saving tax is a win-win situation for the taxpayer. For this, you can choose a little amount that may not pitch you or become a burden on your pocket. But at the end of the year, you can see a high amount that can be claimed. As per ATO, anything above $2 is eligible for the deduction but need a receipt.
4. Clear Your Bills Before The Due Date
There is nothing better than clearing your billings as a lump sum. Looking for weekly or monthly options can be really troubling. First, you need to save weekly or monthly receipts. Second, there can be a chance to miss the payment. Whereas, monthly payment saves you from these troublesome. You can easily reclaim the amount and receive a higher refund on current year income.
5. Super Funds Are Ideal
This method is an ideal choice, especially, when from a couple, one member is not working or getting less than $40000 (the amount may vary as per govt. policies). They can reduce the tax burden by using a super contribution. A partner with higher income can contribute $3000 to other partners and claim 18% deductions or $540. These funds benefit both low income and person earning up to $52,000 to put some money into super funds.
6. Check Your Present Investments
It’s a good way to earn money through shares and investments. These also provide an opportunity to set off your losses. For example, if you put your funds in 2 investments. One is generating a high profit and another is on loss. You can sell the loss investment and set against capital gain minus capital loss. The rest amount will be the only taxable.
7. Do Not Ignore Health Insurance
Health insurance companies announce a hike in their policy prices recently. But don’t worry. You can take benefit of complete health insurance in case you fall ill or suffer from serious issues. But, if everything is fine, you can claim the amount from policy income and deduct from income. This means you will be having the best in both worlds.
Filing Taxes are an important obligation. Therefore, always double-check what you are claiming for and what you will be going to pay with ATO. Be sure before filing, otherwise hire an expert to complete all your documents on time.
