The Australian Taxation Office has announced new working-from-home provisions, allowing employees to automatically claim an hourly flat rate for expenses.

Come tax time, anyone who has been working from home since March 1 due to the COVID-19 crisis will be able to claim 80c for every hour they worked.

ATO Assistant Commissioner Karen Foat tells Deborah Knight claimants should keep a log of their hours as proof, but don’t need to provide receipts.

“The 80c per hour includes all of your costs, so that’s things like depreciation on [home] office furniture, depreciation on a computer, electricity, phone, internet – all of those things [are] rolled in.”

Under the new system, there’s no need to divvy the expenses between members of a household.

“There’s many people in a given household at the moment, and it could be quite complicated to work out which bit was your bit of the internet usage, and which bit was hubby’s, and which bit the kids were using for school.

“[This is] a new simple method that people can use if they choose.”

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