ATO defends adjustments to WFH fee, record-keeping regime

Chatting with Accountants Day by day, he mentioned information had been all the time required whichever deduction way used to be used and the ATO used to be embarking on a media marketing campaign — taking in the entirety from TV to its web page — to make sure everybody knew concerning the adjustments.

He mentioned the verdict to transport the beginning date for tighter record-keeping from the start of 2023 to at least one March got here after comments from the career.

“No information equals no deduction and so other folks have all the time been preserving information,” he mentioned. “However we recognise it’s a metamorphosis with regards to the best way other folks stay information and we’ve heard the comments from exterior stakeholders right through the session procedure.

“So what we did used to be attempt to to find some heart floor and we made up our minds that the record-keeping necessities will get started from 1 March of this 12 months.”

He mentioned taxpayers had been already on top of things on timekeeping so it will be a very simple alternate for many.

“We all know that numerous other folks do have just right information, they maintain just right diaries. And they are able to additionally get the timesheets from the employer for all the duration with regards to what they’ve been operating from domestic.

“So from our viewpoint, we don’t assume it’s going to be a hard transition. However we do wish to be sure that we keep up a correspondence this to the wider neighborhood.

“So we’re going to be making sure that we get this message out via a complete advertising marketing campaign, which we’re launching these days.

“So we’ve were given instructional knowledge throughout our social media channels, we’ve up to date the recommendation and steerage that we have got on ato.gov.au and we will be able to be sending instructional emails to taxpayers and tax brokers.”

The marketing campaign would absorb social media, mainstream media, radio, TV, our web page and the e-mail marketing campaign would use the ATO’s database to focus on the ones more likely to declare WFH deductions.

Mr Loh mentioned the revisions to the mounted fee way would additionally make issues more effective for accountants.

“It’s going to make their process more straightforward with the 67c-per-hour mounted fee way as a result of numerous the paintings they needed to do ahead of used to be understanding whether or not the work-related share of a few of these in point of fact tricky bills is deducted, slightly than simply all the factor.”

He mentioned the 67c fee could be reviewed to stay it in step with emerging prices.

“We perceive the tricky financial stipulations dealing with taxpayers at the moment with the price of dwelling, and we’re going to proceed overview the velocity to make sure it’s reflective of the amount of bills lined.”