Anthony Bell prepares us for our looming taxes on what is essential for families, singles and small business to make sure that we get the best possible refund and quickly!
When it comes to organising information for your tax return, it is really important that you declare all of your assessable income and maximise possible deductions available to you.
Common work related deductions that you need to include could be;
1. Motor Vehicle expenses
2. Travel expenses
3. Uniform, laundry and Dry Cleaning
4. Self education expenses
5. Deductible Gifts and Donations
6. Other work related deductions such as income protection insurance, union fees, home office expenses, phone, internet, subscriptions, stationary, accounting fees, depreciation and overtime meals
7. Personal super contributions, subject to eligibility.
8. Eligible prepayments including interest
9. Investment property income and expenses
10. Dividend income and related expenses When collating all your deductions, make sure you divide them up into the above ten categories and ensure you keep all of your invoices for five years. The tax office may call on them during this time.
When you go over these deductions, your accountant will be able to advise you of the best way to maximise your claims.
Also remember there are some deductions that you are unable to claim. These include private or domestic expenses which are incurred in generating your assessable income. Fines are also not deductible.
There are also a number of tax offsets that you may be eligible for and it is worthwhile that you seek advice from your accountant, some of these are;
• Superannuation contributions for your Spouse, subject to eligibility
• Medical offset
• Education tax refund
• Spouse Tax offset
• Entrepreneur tax offset
• Low income tax offset I also find when preparing returns that many taxpayers
• Not include interest from all bank accounts or income from a previous job.
• Forget to declare income from a Trust, investments and Capital gains on investments
• Not claim all of the eligible deductions as identified above
• Forget to check their eligibility for any of the tax offsets that are listed above.
• Pay the Medicare levy surcharge even when they have private health insurance
• Also remember you do not need to include income generated from a hobby, lottery winnings, prizes, betting and gambling winnings, exempt government pensions such as family tax benefits and child support payments you receive, gifts you have received or money you have borrowed.
From next year there will be some changes due to the 2012 Budget; these include;
• A means tested Schoolkids Bonus of $410 per primary school child and $820 per secondary school child
• Cuts to personal tax rates where income is less than $80,000 and means testing of the medical expenses tax offset.
• The Flood Levy ceases at 30 June 2012
• Small Business losses claw back will be introduced resulting in refunds of up to $300K for companies that incur losses in future years.
• Business will also experience an instant asset write off threshold increase to $6,500 and an immediate write off of the first $5,000 for cars and utes.
