Tax Made Easy in Mitcham
Whether you’re a small business or an independent entity, taxes affect all of us. For tips and tricks in this regard, feel free to peruse some of our tax guidelines and tips.
2025 Individual Tax Checklist As in previous years we are providing a list of items that you may find useful in order to complete your tax return:
• Annual Payment Summaries (formerly known as Group Certificates), Pension Statements, Centrelink Payment Summaries for pensions, youth allowance, newstart etc.;
• Termination payments – If you have received a Lump Sum Payment (long service leave, superannuation etc.) on termination of employment, please ensure that you obtain a copy from your employer;
• Interest Income from bank accounts such as term deposits / Dividends received for the financial year;
• Details of any other income received, for example rental income, casual wages, business/ABN income, trust/partnership distributions; income from subcontracting, foreign income
• Did you sell any shares/investments/ rental property during the year? We will need details of the purchase and sale price as well as cost of buying/selling for capital gains purposes
• Details of work related expenses, for example motor vehicle log book, uniforms or protective clothing, tools, education, reference books, stationery etc.;
• Union fees, Subscriptions to professional institutions;
• Donations, Gifts to registered charitable institutions or school building funds;
• Income Protection for the year;
• Private health insurance statements (if provided) including membership number and rebate details, otherwise we can look this up for you;
• Did you pay any PAYG instalments during the year? Please provide total paid for the year
New to 2024/2025:
- Cents per kilometre change – New Rate is 88cents per kilometre for work related cars, for electric vehicles it is still the EV home charging rate of 4.2c per kilometre
- Working from Home – The new fixed rate is 70c per hour
• For Small Business
- Instant Asset Write Off – $20,000 Threshold has been extended
- Build to rent developments – Tax incentives apply from 1/1/2025
- Film Tax Offsets – Changes made to these incentives with location and producer offsets
- Superannuation Guarantee – From 1/7/2025 is now 12%
• ATO Audit Focus
- Work related deductions – These continue to be an ATO focus, remember the claim must be directly related to your job, if reimbursed by your employer it must not be claimed
- Working from home – Comprehensive records are required. Hours worked from home must be detailed in the form of a spreadsheet/diary. Fixed rate is now 70 cents per hour
- Rental properties – focus on incorrectly claiming Repairs & Maintenance, mainly whether it is allowed to be written off immediately or capital in nature. Claiming interest related to own home in addition to rental property.
- Claiming Holiday home that is not genuinely available to rent
- Including all income – Cryptocurrency, with the rise of this type of investment you must declare all profits. ATO still focused on Uber, Air tasker, Airbnb
SUBSTANTIATION
Generally deductions are only allowable for employment related expenses if documentary evidence is provided. You need to keep your tax related receipts and statements for 5 years in the event of an audit.
PENALTIES
Penalties may be imposed on tax returns lodged after the lodgement due date. Please ensure that you adhere to lodgement and payment dates to avoid unnecessary interest charges and late lodgement penalties
PLEASE PROTECT YOURSELF FROM SCAMMERS
We ask that you all to please be vigilant with scammers. There has been such a rise in scammers pretending to be the ATO, your banking institution, from the Fraud department etc. We ask that unless you are calling the number directly to please be wary of someone calling you or even texting or emailing you. Any links sent should not be used and please as other of our clients have done, feel free to call us to verify if the ATO has indeed tried to call you and we will be happy to check.
We look forward to hearing from you soon. Please call to arrange an appointment at our office located at Building 1/ 18-20 Redland Drive Mitcham VIC 3132. However if you usually mail in your documents please forward these to our post office box, PO BOX 1038, Waverley Gardens VIC 3170. Or for those of you who like to email your returns you can email us at tax@bluestoneaccounting.com.au.
Starting A Small Business
Here at Bluestone Accounting we make starting a new business easy, and can advise you on:
- The right Business Structure
- Tax Returns
- Applying for an ABN
- Applying for GST
- Registering a Business Name
- Setting up Employees
- Organizing your Workcover
- Reporting your Superannuation
- Advise you on what Tax Deductions you can claim
- Any Tax Offsets you may be eligible for and
- All your Reporting and Compliance.
As Certified MYOB Consultants we can advise and help you set up bookkeeping software, instruct you on the more in depth areas of bookkeeping and lodge BAS and PAYG Statements. In addition we can help you understand profit and loss statements and balance sheets to analyze how your business is performing all at an affordable cost.
