It’s June 30! For my fellow Aussies, you know what that means – it’s tax time :/

Following on from the post I wrote about how I’m organizing my taxes using a printable tax planner, today I’m sharing a lit of 100 claimable tax deductions I’ve compiled after hours of research and my own experience with tax time.

After becoming frustrated with blogs and websites and their ‘top 10 tax deductions you’re probably forgetting to claim’ (which stated the glaringly obvious types of expenses that everyone knows you can claim), and a lack of one place to keep track of tax deductible expenses (I don’t have time to spend hours surfing the net every year during stressful tax time researching what I can and can’t claim!), I decided to make my own. I figured there are many others in a similar situation to me (since you’re reading this blog post) so today I’m sharing the 4 page checklist I’ve created which has saved me a ton of time and $$$ when preparing my tax return. You may not be able to claim all of the expenses on the list but you’ll find at least some of the deductions will apply to you whether you’re an entrepreneur, a college student, a blogger, work from home, are a direct sales consultant, Etsy shop owner, own an investment property or just work a normal day job. There’s a section to record the name and financial year if you and your spouse/partner are filing separate tax returns.

I hope you find it useful and I hope it saves you time and $$! If you’re like a copy of the checklist, just enter your name and email address in the box below (you’ll also be subscribed to the blog where you’ll be notified when new blog posts and FREE printables are added, as well as gain access to the free printables library! 🙂

All printables are for personal use only.

So what are tax deductions? (And why you should care)

Tax deductions reduce the amount of tax you have to pay (who wouldn’t want that?!) That’s one of the main reasons I did oodles of research into what I can and can’t claim – being tax savvy and doing the research now, means I only need to a quick refresh when I’m preparing my taxes each year to see if any tax laws have changed, as I can refer to the tax deductions checklist for years to come.

Income less deductions = assessible income (the income you pay tax on)

So you can see that the more tax deductions you have, the lower your assessible income is going to be and hence, the less tax you’re going to have to pay! You’re probably incurring most of the expenses on these checklists already anyway, it’s just a matter of keeping track of how much you’ve spent (and making sure you hang onto your receipts!)

tax planner printable how to prepare for tax time etsy seller binder organization printable — I store the tax printables & receipts in a binder. I recommend closeable pockets for each year’s receipts (or each category’s receipts if you have a lot of them). This pocket has the holes pre-punched for a binder (Ditto brand from Big W). You could also hold your receipts together with a butterfly clip.

How Much Tax Do You Need to pay?

Step 1

Tally up all of your sources of income. This might include:

Day job
Business income
Interest on dividends
Blog advertising revenue e.g. Google Adsense, Adthrive etc.
Rental income from investment properties
Interest on savings account
Sponsored posts
Paid reviews
Mystery shopping income
Affiliate sales

Step 2

Total up all of your deductions from the checklist. If you need printables to help you keep track of the totals, you’ll love my tax planner 🙂

Step 3

Work out your assessable income (your total income less allowable deductions)

Step 4

Work out how much tax you need to pay based on your assessable income. You can find a copy of tax rate income thresholds on your government’s website. Once you know how much tax you’re going to need to pay, I highly recommend setting aside a little bit each month (based on your estimated tax debt) so you have the funds ready to pay the debt when it falls due. Using last year’s revenue as a benchmark and setting up an appropriate budgeting system also helps!

If you’re interested in learning more about how I organize my taxes, I shared how to set up a tax planner in this blog post

Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not an accountant. This list of tax deductions is based on my own research. Note also that I live in Australia and not all of the expenses may be claimable in the country you live in. Please consult with a tax professional if you have specific questions about tax deductions. This information is meant for educational purposes, and does not constitute professional advice.