What can a tradie claim at tax time in Australia?

Before you claim a cent, the expense has to pass one test. It must be genuinely work-related, and you need a record to prove it. If something is part work and part personal, like your phone or your ute, you can generally only claim the work-related portion.

That is the whole game. No record, no claim. A shoebox of faded receipts and a good guess will not cut it if the ATO ever asks. Keep the proof, keep it honest, and the rest is just knowing what counts.

The obvious ones for a tradie. Tools, equipment, consumables and the materials you buy for jobs are generally claimable. Bigger tool purchases may need to be claimed over several years rather than all at once, depending on the cost and the rules that apply that year, so it is worth asking your accountant how to handle the pricey gear.

Protective and occupation-specific clothing counts too: steel-caps, hi-vis, safety glasses, hard hats, gloves and the like. Everyday clothes you happen to wear to work generally do not, even if they get trashed on site. The line is whether it is genuine protective or trade-specific gear.

Your vehicle is often one of the biggest claims, but only the work-related running counts. Driving between jobs, to suppliers, or to a client site is usually claimable. Your normal trip from home to a regular workplace generally is not. The rules here have a few wrinkles, so this is one to confirm with your accountant.

There are set methods for working out a vehicle claim, and a logbook of your trips makes it far easier to back up. Recording your work kilometres as you drive, rather than guessing at the end of the year, is the difference between a solid claim and a shaky one.

The running costs of the business add up. The work-related share of your phone and internet, your public liability and tool insurance, software subscriptions, licence and registration renewals, and accounting fees are all commonly claimable. So is training that relates directly to your current trade.

Again, split anything that is part personal. If your phone is half private use, you claim half. Keep the bills and note the work portion. For what public liability actually covers, our guide on insurance for tradies walks through the basics.

The tradies who dread tax time are the ones scrambling to reconstruct a year of spending from memory. The ones who breeze through it just logged each expense as it happened. Snap the receipt, note what it was for, move on.

This is exactly where the right tool earns its keep. ONARA Books, the optional add-on to ONARA Ops, lets you log expenses and photograph receipts on the spot, run a mileage logbook, and see your profit per job. It is a tool to help you stay organised, not a registered tax or BAS agent, so have your accountant review the figures at tax time.