There are over 8 million taxpayers claiming work-related deductions and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) are checking them out!

In 2014/15 approximately 450,000 income tax returns were scrutinised and that number is climbing every year as technology advancements are made.

The past few weeks has seen me exposing some of the dodgy deductions the ATO have picked up on, I hope you enjoyed the read.

Case study 5 – self-education:

A taxpayer claimed self-education expenses for the cost of leasing a property, which was not his main residence.

The taxpayer claimed he had to incur the expense of renting the property as he ‘required peace and quiet for uninterrupted study which he could not have in his own home’.  This was not deductible.

In addition to the rental expenses, the cost of a storage facility was claimed where ‘the taxpayer needed to store his books and study materials’.

He claimed he needed this because of the huge amount of books and study material associated with his course and had no space in his private or rented residence where these could be housed.  This was not deductible.

The cost of renting the property was around $57,000, with additional expenses of $7,500 for the storage facility.  The actual cost of the program he attended that year was only $1,200.

Oh my…

Regards