After a full year of COVID-19, a lot of things have changed in Australia.
And the end of the financial year, filing your tax return could also look a little different.
The Australian Tax Office says it expects an increase in deductions related to people working from home, such as the cost of electricity, internet, phone, and depreciation in the value of office equipment.
Ken Devos is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the Swinburne University of Technology.
He says there are a few ways you can work out your deductions related to working from home, depending on your situation.
The most straightforward of these is the temporary shortcut method, which uses a rate of 80 cents per hour to calculate your claim for all out of pocket, work-related expenses.
"Basically, what this saves is a lot of paperwork. All you need to do is to keep a record of the number of hours that you actually did work at home during the week. So in a typical week, someone who was working from home, for example, for the whole year - you know, 40 hours a week, 48 weeks of the year - that would be a straight-out standard claim of approximately $1500, which is very easy and simple to work out."
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