The end of the financial year is a little more than two weeks away. This means that you don’t have long to act to ensure that you pay the optimal amount of tax. Here are our top 7 tax tips.

1. Have you been working from home during the pandemic?

If you are one of the millions of Australians who worked from home during the pandemic, the Government has established a temporary ‘short-cut’ method to claim home office expenses as a tax deduction. You don’t have to use this method (you can choose whichever method gives you the best outcome), but it is very simple and requires almost no documentation.

For the period from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022, you can claim a deduction of 80 cents per hour for each hour worked at home. This covers all work from home expenses such as phone expenses, internet expenses, electricity and gas for heating, cooling and lighting, and the decline in value (depreciation) of equipment and furniture.

You don’t need any expense records, nor do you need to have a dedicated work area to use this method. All you require is a timesheet or diary that shows the hours worked.

Sign up to the Switzer Report to read the full article and gain access to exclusive content like our weekly investing webinar hosted live by Peter Switzer and Paul Rickard.