Each year the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) release a series of guides for specific occupations.

These guides are designed to help you, the taxpayer, to understand what you can and can’t claim as work-related expenses.

The guides are broken down into sections that match the labels in the income tax return and include car expenses, home office expenses, clothing expenses and self-education expenses.

The current guides available are for the following occupations:

• construction workers
• retail workers
• office workers
• Australian Defence Force
• sales and marketing
• nurse, midwife or carer
• police officers
• public servants
• teachers
• truck drivers

If you would like to download a copy of these guides, you can perform a search from this link.

As always, if you are unsure, ask me!

Regards

If you or someone you know has some experience in owning or running a small business and would like to be involved with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to help with workshops or testing of user experiences, you can!

The ATO Small Business Consultation Panel comprises small business owners who help the ATO to deliver their services and you can even be paid for your time!

To find out more, visit www.ato.gov.au

Regards

The 2017 Small Business Festival officially comes to a close today – did you get to an event or two??

I hosted a networking event early in the month of August, attended the launch of the Festival here in the Great South Coast Region and managed a couple of webinars throughout the month.  Unfortunately other commitments kept me from attending any face to face events but I’ve heard great things.

As it happens, in our area alone over 800 participants attended 22 events – Warrnambool City Council tell me this makes it one of the biggest years for the Festival locally so that is great news.

If you are interested in hosting an event for 2018, get your thinking cap on be ready for registrations (usually in February/March each year)

Regards

I recently picked up this postcard prepared by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and wanted to share it with you.

On the back it says: “We all play our part to keep it fair.  However, you may know people that unfairly use cash to hide income and avoid tax.  These people cheat the community and disadvantage Australians who do the right thing.”

“Your choice and actions, as a consumer or in business, can help to protect you and ensure others play fair too.  Strong tax ad super systems help sustain a strong community”

“For more information visit www.ato.gov.au/casheconomy”

It is so important that we all abide by the tax law and contribute our fair share, so if you see something, say something…go on, keep it fair.

Regards