Good morning peeps, I don't know about you, but I personally love tax time. Its a chance to claw back some forced savings that the tax office have taken from us in the most creative ways possible.

Now let me state this loud and clear.

NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

Now thats out of the way, I'm not a tax agent or accountant or anything like that, but I have a keen interest in how it all all works and what is good to claim as a deduction. Because of my trade background, I've always had a lot of options open to me for deductions, things such as overtime meals, tools, safety equipment, travel etc. But as I moved away from being a spanner monkey, some of those deductions disappeared, and I had to be more creative in what I could claim.

Now, I NEVER aim to lie, or be downright fraudulent as that's illegal. But so long as you can substantiate an expense occurred while earning taxable income, no matter how obscure it is, you can claim it.

Ladies Deductions:

If you have to work outside at all, be it to inspect work, or regularly walk between meetings and buildings etc, you're at risk of sun cancer. So that make up you need to wear for work that has SPF sunscreen in it, then that is a deduction.
Also, you need to carry all your belongings and work equipment with you, so your handbag is also a deduction, or at least partial deduction because it can be used outside of work.

Travel Deduction:

Ok this has some major stigma to it, but the ATO does have it laid out pretty clearly.

So if you have 2 jobs, which many people do, you can claim your miles between Job 1 and job 2, but what most of you didn't realise is that you can then claim the miles from job 2 to your house.

If you are studying for legitimate Self Education, then any time you have to drive to TAFE, you can claim those miles. The same if you have to drive or commute to a work placement.

If you are going to claim these, you really need to keep a good log, and I would recommend using google maps to get an accurate distance from point A to point B.

Home Expenses

If you carry on business at home, you can claim portions of your household expenses as a deduction.
For me personally, I utilise my shed as well as my fence to earn an income. So I claim a portion of my mortgage interest as the property earns me income. Admitedly its only a small percentage, but its still a deduction.

If you use your home internet or mobile data to send and recieve work emails afterhours, then you can claim a portion of your phone bill, and electricity and data etc. Obviously, you need to be able to substantiate the claims, and the portion that you claim needs to be proportionate to the amount of work you actually do.

If you're going to claim your Steemit earnings, then you would be 100% entitled to claim your home electricity, your internet and anything else that you may need at home to earn your income.

I hope some of these give you some ideas on getting more deductions at tax time. Just remember you need to be able to substantiate the claims, and less is more. If you don't go over the top you've got less chance of being reviewed by the ATO, or at least having a better chance of having your claim being approved if they do review.