We've gathered together everything you need to know to do your taxes like a pro.
It’s the most magical time of the (financial) year, Flux fam: Tax time. It’s when we scrounge up our receipts, lodge our tax returns with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and often, receive a nice juicy tax refund.
If it’s your first time going solo (aka, mum and dad aren’t helping you this year) or you want to learn a little bit more about your taxes, here’s a Flux breakdown.
Not to be confused with your tax refund, your tax return is the form you lodge with the ATO after June 30 each year.
The ATO uses your tax return to figure out what your taxable income was for the previous financial year - and whether you paid too much (or too little) tax.
The formula they use is: taxable income = assessable income - tax deductions.
So, in your tax return, you’ll declare all your assessable income, like:
And any tax deductions, like:
So, if you earned $80,000 (pre-tax), but had $3,000 worth of tax deductions, your taxable income actually becomes $77,000.
This is normally the fun part. It’s where you can reduce your assessable income by claiming certain expenses. Generally, these are work-related expenses. To do it, you’ll need to:
These might be things like:
You can claim your work-related expenses in the work-related expense section of your tax return.
The quickest way to lodge your tax return (and receive your tax refund) is via the ATO’s myTax tool, which is available via myGov.
Most of the information will be pre-filled by your employer - all you need to do is double check it. However, just because you can lodge your tax return on July 1, it’s actually recommended that you wait a few weeks - even until the end of July. This is because it can take a few weeks for your employer to upload all your info.
You’ll know your tax return is ready to go when your income statement says ‘tax ready’.
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