Due to COVID19 the ATO is temporarily allowing us three options to calculate our home office expenses.

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  • shortcut method(only available for work conducted between 01 March 2020 – 31 December 2020)

Claim a rate of 80 cents per work hour to cover all additional running expenses. You are not required to have a dedicated work area for this particular method.

If you use this method between 01 March – 30 September 2020, you cannot claim other office expenses such as telephone, depreciation, etc.

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  • fixed rate method ─  you may claim all of these
    • a rate of 52 cents per work hour to cover heating, cooling, lighting, cleaning and the decline in value of office furniture
    • the work-related portion of your actual costs of phone and internet expenses, computer consumables, stationery
    • the work-related portion of the decline in value of a computer, laptop or similar device.
  • actual cost method ─ claim the actual work-related portion of all your running expenses. You need to use a reasonable basis to calculate this.

For full details about eligibility, and what you can and cannot claim, please see here.