You can only claim a deduction if your day-to-day expenses increase as a result of you working from home.

For example, if you pay a fixed amount of board and none of the running costs of the house, you cannot claim this deduction as your outgoing expenses do not increase when you work from home.

You can claim a flat rate of 67 cents/hour worked from home.

This covers the following expenses:

• telephone and internet costs
• electricity and gas
• computer consumables (such as printer ink)
• stationery

As this has change has been introduced part way through the tax year, there is a transitional record keeping arrangement.

For the period 1 July – 28 February :  you can provide a representative record for the total hours worked.

e.g. any kind of record of the hours you worked for a particular period and then applying this across the 8 month period

From 1 March 2023:   you must keep a record of every hour worked from home.  A representative diary is not sufficient.

You may also need to keep records of some expenses incurred while working from home, such as utility bills.

You are no longer required to have a dedicated home office to use this method.

You can claim depreciation of office equipment (computers etc) and office furniture on top of this fixed rate.

From 1 July 2022 the only alternative is the actual costs method.

You must have a dedicated home office space.

You must keep complete records of all expenses and demonstrate how you have calculated the work-related percentage usage of each item.

The record keeping requirement for this method is quite complex, so please contact us if you intend to use this method.

More information about working from home expenses is available from the ATO website.