Home office expenses Running cost and Occupancy expenses

Individual Tax Return Basics:

Home office expenses Running cost and Occupancy expenses

You may be entitled to claim deductions for home office expenses:

Running costs may be deductible.
Occupancy expenses are generally not deductible for an employee.
You must keep records.

Running costs

Home office Running cost

If you perform some of your work from a home office, you may be entitled to a deduction for the costs you incur in running it, including:

for home office equipment, such as computers, printers and telephones, the cost (for items costing up to $300) or decline in value (for items costing $300 or more).
work-related phone calls (including mobiles) and phone rental (a portion reflecting the share of work-related use of the line) if you can show you
– are on call, or
– have to phone your employer or clients regularly while you are away from your workplace

heating, cooling and lighting
the costs of repairs to your home office furniture and fittings
cleaning expenses.

Occupancy expenses

As an employee, you are generally not able to claim a deduction for occupancy expenses, which include rent or mortgage interest, council rates, and house insurance premiums.

Please click on the link for the Home office expenses calculator: Home office expenses calculator

Records you must keep

You must keep records of home expenses – these can be:

receipts or other written evidence of your expenses, including receipts for depreciating assets you have purchased
diary entries you make to record your small expenses ($10 or less) totalling no more than $200, or expenses you cannot get any kind of evidence for, regardless of the amount
itemised phone accounts from which you can identify work-related calls, or other records, such as diary entries (if you do not get an itemised account from your phone company)
a diary you have created to work out how much you used your equipment, home office and phone for business purposes over a representative four-week period.

Source: The Australian Tax Office