This is my own steps, that I drafted on my own, to lodge the much dreaded yearly tax return. It won’t work to everyone’s needs, it suits mine – normal salaried worker with long term held shares and properties.
- Create an excel spreadsheet.
- I have my own that I create for my own circumstance, that you can copy from here.
- Save that spreadsheet under “Income Tax Return FInancial Year 20xx” in e-file system.
Tip: model the spreadsheet as per income tax return lay out
Tip no 2: always refer to the guide and ATO website in general for a clear guidance
- Do your expenses first
- Calculate your WFH days
- Calculate your WFH deductions per ATO website
- Enter this into the spreadsheet
- Grab the expenses you had filed during the year, for example:
- Stationery expenses
- Laptop invoice
- Keyboard invoice
- Ergo chair invoice
- Working desk invoice
- Desk lamp invoice
Note:
- whenever I incurred an expense to gain assessable income e.g. laptop, I will always straightaway safe keep it.
- How?
- screenshot it or save it into my gmail, and then label it as Income Tax Return FInancial Year 20xx”.
- And then synch that straight into into my e-filing system into the folder “Income Tax Returno a FInancial Year 20xx.
- Enter these expenses into the spreadsheet
- Do your incomes
- Get your PAYG SUMMARY off MYGOV
- Key into the spreadsheet your gross salary & withheld amount
- Check your other incomes, some of most common incomes are here:
- Dividend – from your broker’s EOFY statement
- Interest on savings – from your banks and it will be data matched
- Capital gains – from your broker’s EOFY statement
- Online retail income – from eBay, PayPal, etsy, etc
- Share trading income – from your broker’s EOFY statement
- Get your PAYG SUMMARY off MYGOV
- Double check everything
- Ensure all necessary documents are saved in the folder
- Have a break
- Triple chec
- Key these figures into etax/mygove
- Double check everything
- Ensure all necessary documents are saved in the folder
- Have a break
- Triple check
- Keep these for proofs:
- lodged lodgement
- lodgement receipt
- Your excel
- All of the invoices, EOFY statements from brokers, bank statements, etc
- Notice of Assessments (once received)
For property investor
- I would suggest that every investor check rent regularly i.e. whenver rental statement comes in, it’s got to be checked on its accuracy i.e.:
- is the income correct,
- Has it covered all the required rental period
- Is this expense necessary
- Has this expense been approved by you)
- Has the money (net rent) indeed transferred and received into the nominated bank account of yours
- While rent checking, I would suggest that you have an excel tracking:
- Gross income
- Other rental related incomes
- Expenses such as:
- Rates
- Council
- Utilities
- Property management
- Body Corp
- Interest deductions
- Capital works
- Net rent
- This way, at filing, you would only need to very little steps, such as the following. I have created my own template for my own situation, which you could use to give you an idea on how to do yours.
- Get your gross income from EOFY rental statement
- Total your expenses, e.g.:
- Council
- Utilities
- Body Corp
- Advertising
- Total your expenses
- Deduct your gross income against your total expenses, to get your net income
- Fill in the schedule of property
- Fill in the rent section with these figures:
- Gross rent
- Interest
- Capital works
- Other
- Net loss
- And then double and triple check. Ensure you have all documents.
- If everything is correct, all documents are saved properly on hand. You’re ready to submit 🙂
Note: if have any doubt, call the tax office directly. They are super friendly!