For those who know ATO introduced a new shortcut method to claim home office expenses due the increase in WFH due to Covid lockdown. This increased the amount of home office expenses you can claim from 52 cents/hr to 80 cents/hr. Well they have now extended this to Jun 2021. For a 8 hr day that is $6.4/hr or $32/week to claim in your tax if you are working from home full time.
The shortcut method simplifies how you calculate your deduction for working from home. Using this method, you can claim 80 cents per hour for each hour you work from home.
This method is temporary and can only be used to work out your work from home deduction:
- between 1 March to 30 June 2020 in the 2019–20 income year
- for the 2020–21 income year.
https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/income-and-deductions/ded…
Definitely handy for some folk. Just check what works best for your personal circumstances though. For me it was far better to deduct the cost of other home office expenses + the lower hourly rate. For my partner the shortcut method was better.