THE Australian Taxation Office has its sights on work-related expenses like car and travel claims that are predicted to decrease in this year's tax returns.
About 8.5 million Australians claimed nearly $19.4 billion in work-related expenses in 2020 tax returns.
ATO Assistant Commissioner Tim Loh noted that COVID-19 has changed up people's work habits and it was expected work-related expenses would reflect this.
"We know many people started working from home during COVID-19, so a jump in these claims is expected," Mr Loh said. "But, if you are working at home, we would not expect to see claims for travelling between worksites, laundering uniforms or business trips."
Last year, the value of car and travel expenses decreased by nearly 5.5%. However, there was a slight increase of around 2.6% in clothing expenses. With uniform and laundry claims significantly lower, this increase was driven by frontline workers' first-time need for things like hand sanitiser and face masks.
"While it's good to see most people have been doing the right thing, our data analytics will be on the lookout for unusually high claims this tax time," Mr Loh said.
"Particularly where someone's deductions are much higher than others with a similar job and income."
"We will also look closely at anyone with significant working from home expenses, that maintains or increases their claims for things like car, travel or clothing expenses."
"You can't simply copy and paste previous year's claims without evidence."
Mr Loh said the ATO realised some of these "unusual" claims may be legitimate and if evidence was supplied with each claim, "you have nothing to fear".
