Do you want to claim your home office expenses?
How home office expenses work....
You may be entitled to claim deductions for home office expenses:
Running costs may be deductible.
Occupancy expenses are generally not deductible for an employee.
You must keep records.
Running costs
If you perform some of your work from a home office, you may be entitled to a deduction for the costs you incur in running it, including:
for home office equipment such as computers, printers and telephones, the cost (for items costing up to $300) or decline in value (for items costing $300 or more – see Tools, equipment and other assets)
work-related phone calls (including mobiles) and phone rental (a portion reflecting the share of work-related use of the line) if you can show you
are on call, or
have to phone your employer or clients regularly while you are away from your workplace
heating, cooling and lighting
the costs of repairs to your home office furniture and fittings
cleaning expenses.
Occupancy expenses
As an employee, you are generally not able to claim a deduction for occupancy expenses, which include rent or mortgage interest, council rates and house insurance premiums.
Records you must keep
You must keep records of home expenses and these can be:
receipts or other written evidence of your expenses, including receipts for depreciating assets you have purchased
diary entries you make to record your small expenses ($10 or less) totalling no more than $200, or expenses you cannot get any kind of evidence for, regardless of the amount
itemised phone accounts from which you can identify work-related calls or, if you do not get an itemised account from your phone company, records (such as diary entries – see below)
a diary you have created to work out how much you used your equipment, home office and phone for business purposes over a representative four-week period.
The best way to prepare these expenses for your tax return is to use the calculator in the link below and pdf the results and send them to us with all your other information.
http://www.ato.gov.au/Calculators-and-tools/Home-office-expenses/