Remember to do your homework before claiming a charitable donation tax deduction | Parkes Champion Post
Each year the Australian Tax Office identifies different areas of interest to focus on when assessing tax returns.
These are often elements of a performance that are easy to make mistakes with or inadvertently ignore. “The ATO is targeting problem areas where we see people making mistakes,” said Assistant Commissioner Tim Loh.
Information provided by the ATO shows that in 2020-21, $22.3 million in penalties were issued against 2,218 individual taxpayers, with the most common reason for penalties being “intentional non-compliance with a tax law , recklessness and lack of due diligence”.
With the shift to remote arrangements and working from home, as well as increasing investments in cryptocurrencies, it is no surprise that the ATO is paying close attention to this. This year, the focus is on record keeping; work-related expenses; income and deductions from rental property; capital gains from crypto assets, real estate, stocks.
The ATO advised taxpayers to keep accurate records of work-related expenses, income from rental property, deductions and capital gains from investments to avoid getting caught with incorrect or incomplete information when filing. their tax returns.
[We] will take strong action to deal with those taxpayers who get an unfair advantage…
– australian tax office
Using apps to track expenses, such as MyDeductions in the ATO app, can help ensure accurate and complete information for tax time. Using MyDeductions to record expenses and the ATO app to file a return, as well as waiting until pre-populated income, interest, and investment information is filled into your myTax account, can make it easier the deposit.
“You can check if your employer has marked your tax return as ‘tax ready’ and if your pre-fill is available in myTax before you file. This way an edit doesn’t need to be made later, which could cause delays in your refund,” Mr. Loh said. “While we receive and combine a lot of information about rental income, foreign source income and capital gains events involving equity , crypto assets or property, we do not pre-populate all of this information.”
The ATO has a warning for anyone who deliberately tries to increase their reimbursement or tamper with records. “[We] will take strong action to deal with those taxpayers who are getting an unfair advantage over the rest of the Australian community doing the right thing.”