Getting Your Tax Return Right - What to Gather Before You Lodge
Tax return lodgement opened on 1 July, but if you've been holding off until now, you've actually made the smart choice. Mid-August is when most of the information the ATO pre-fills into your return — employer income, bank interest, dividends and more — is finally complete, which means less chance of having to amend your return later.
Why the timing matters
Employers are required to finalise their Single Touch Payroll data with the ATO by 14 July for larger employers, or 31 July for small employers with 19 or fewer staff. Once finalised, your income statement flips from "year to date" to "tax ready" in myGov. Other pre-fill data — bank interest, dividend statements, private health insurance details — usually follows through July and into August, though some managed fund distribution statements can take longer. Lodging before everything is tax ready is one of the most common reasons people end up needing to amend their return.
What to gather before you start
Before you sit down to lodge, pull together your income statement (or check it's marked tax ready in myGov), any bank interest and dividend statements, records of rental income if you own an investment property, and details of any other income such as side work, freelance income, or capital gains from selling shares or property. The ATO has specifically flagged multiple income sources — including gig economy and platform work — as an area it will be scrutinising closely this year, cross-referencing data from platforms and exchanges directly, so it's worth being thorough rather than assuming smaller amounts of side income will go unnoticed.
The working-from-home deduction — get this one right
On the deduction side, gather receipts and records for work-related expenses, any self-education connected to your current job, and donations to registered charities. If you worked from home during 2025–26, you can claim 70 cents for every hour worked from home under the revised fixed rate method, provided you can show a genuine record of the actual hours worked across the full year — a rough estimate or a short sample diary is no longer sufficient. One trap to avoid: if you use the 70 cents rate, you cannot also separately claim your phone, internet or electricity bills, because those running costs are already built into the rate. If your actual expenses are higher, the actual cost method may give you a better outcome, but it requires more detailed record keeping.
A change worth knowing about — but not yet
You may have heard about a new $1,000 instant deduction for work-related expenses that lets people claim without keeping receipts. It's real, but it doesn't apply to the return you're lodging now — it only starts from the 2026–27 income year, meaning it will first appear on returns lodged from July 2027. For this year's return, you still need to substantiate your work-related claims in the usual way.
Know your deadline
If you're lodging your own return without a registered tax agent, the deadline for the 2025–26 year is 2 November 2026, since 31 October falls on a Saturday. If you use a tax agent, different dates can apply, so it's worth confirming your position with us directly. Either way, records need to be kept for five years, so file everything away properly once you've lodged.
Every tax situation is different. Get in touch with us before you lodge — we'll help you gather what's needed and make sure nothing is missed.