A weekend vacation to relieve stress and keep a Maltese hound as a "guard dog" may be a necessary condition for you to work-both of which, unfortunately, are not a reasonable job expense for which you can apply for a tax rebate.
(ATO), the Australian tax service, receives a number of tax rebates each year for work expenses declared by workers who do not know the rules or who want to try their luck anyway.
Other outrageous examples include entertainment workers applying for theater tickets, lawyers declaring expensive suit suits, and traditional clothes that happen to be worn at work, disguised as overseas vacations on business trips or meetings. The cost of traveling with your family on a business trip, as well as the high mobile phone costs after the employer has provided phone and expense reimbursement.
Anderson (Kath Anderson), assistant director of ATO, says the most common mistake people make is reporting travel costs from home to work. But the fees can only be deducted under very limited circumstances-staying up late and being asked to pick up mail on the way to work does not count.
Anderson said ATO has advanced systems and analytics to ensure that error behavior is not ignored and that they can detect errors and fraud.
If taxpayers make false or misleading returns that result in underpayment of taxes, they will be fined between 25 percent and 75 percent of the difference, depending on whether they made a mistake or deliberately ignored the rules.
"in a few cases, we prosecute taxpayers who have to do something wrong." Anderson said.
Common job expenses that can be declared include:
* the cost of self-study education, provided that the curriculum is directly related to the current income-generating profession, not for the future.
: car expenses related to work travel, such as inter-office travel
: membership fees for professional organizations
: industry contributions
: income security insurance
: work-related newspapers and periodicals
: work-related telephone charges
: if you need to wear a specific uniform at work, such as a payment with an employer's trademark, you can also declare the cost of uniform and cleaning
* if you need to work from home, you can declare home office expenses