Work from home deduction calculator

What the 67c already covers

The fixed rate is a bundle. Claim it and you cannot also claim any of these separately, for any part of the year:

• Home and mobile internet or data
• Mobile and home phone usage
• Electricity and gas for heating, cooling and lighting
• Stationery and computer consumables, such as printer ink and paper

What you can still claim on top

These sit outside the bundle. This is where most people under-claim — the rate covers the running costs, not the equipment:

• Decline in value of technology and office furniture — desk, chair, computer, monitor, bookshelves
• Repairs and maintenance to those items
• Items costing $300 or less outright, in the year you buy them
• Cleaning of a dedicated home office, in limited circumstances

The records rule is the one that catches people

You need a record of the actual hours you worked from home across the whole year — a diary, roster, timesheet or logbook kept as you went. A four-week representative sample is no longer accepted, and an estimate written up at tax time is not a record.

You also need at least one bill for each expense the rate covers, to show you incurred it. You are not adding those bills up; you are evidencing that they exist.

Keep both for five years from the date you lodge — and records for depreciating assets for five years from your last decline-in-value claim, which is longer than most people expect.

Worked example

15 hours a week for 48 weeks is 720 hours. At 67c an hour that is a deduction of $482.40 — before any decline in value on the desk, chair or laptop, which is claimed separately.