The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) are encouraging all taxpayers with a rental property to ensure they understand their obligations and get their claims right.

Due to enhancements in technology, the ATO have increased their ability to identify incorrect claims, and they want to ensure you don’t get caught!

They’ve provided a number of case studies and I’ll be sharing them with you over the next five weeks, here’s case study 1*:

Holiday home not genuinely available for rent

John has a newly purchased rental property that had not returned any rental income.  He told the ATO that the property was occasionally advertised on community noticeboards and websites.  John was unable to prove there was a genuine arrangement in which he actively sought tenants, or had taken sufficient steps to genuinely advertise the property for rent.

A rental loss of almost $50,000 was disallowed and penalties were applied.

Don’t be like John!

Regards

*Reproduced from the NTAA