Working for a production company, and given that my income bracket will incur me ~$4.3k tax, what are some strategies I can put in place now to recoup the most tax in June?
I pay for my own mobile, entertainment streaming etc but would like to put a bigger dent in it.
Cheers
Thanks for the suggestions.
Regarding the $0.50 point - totally understand that. The only reason why I'm looking at it is for expenses that I either already buy, am interested in buying or interested in upgrading.
You can claim a percentage of your mobile if you use it for work, same with home office expenses.
Anything else you buy specifically for work, like a briefcase or luggage if you travel for work, travel between workplaces if you pay for that (including off site meetings etc.).
Professional memberships, charity donations, possibly some self education expenses - though that has a threshold and FEEHELP courses don't count.
Happily/unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, your low tax bracket means you have fewer opportunities for more sophisticated strategies, as they all cost money to establish.
Remember if your deductions are low, you can claim up to $300 without receipts, which may be the easiest approach.
To be honest, with your income I would spend time on boosting your income rather than squeezing a handful of dollars out of tax deductions.
Of course I'm working harder at earning more than I am minimising tax. However, given these are some of my first returns, I'd like to get it right and not look back in ten years and realise that I've paid too much by missing a big strategy.
Car expenses are a great deduction, if you can justify that the vehicle has been used the work purposes. I claim 95% of all vehicle expenses for my tax. And I mean all expenses. Insurance, rego, fuel, car washing, services.
Smaller deductions might be washing of work uniforms, electricity (if working from home, education costs and materials, laptops (above $300 will have to be depreciated over 3-5 years), the list goes on.
At the end of the day, anything you buy isn't going to offset 100%. Your tax bracket is low, so for every $1 you spend on tools for work, you will get less than half a dollar back.