If you use your personal mobile phone or home internet for work purposes (i.e making business calls from your mobile or working from home), you may be able to claim a portion of your monthly service bill/s.
Oncore provides the opportunity for you to salary package your business-related expenses. This is not a direct reimbursement of the expense but an offset against your taxable income resulting in greater take-home pay for you. The expenses that you can claim include your mobile phone, internet connection, software purchases, study, self-education, etc.
These are expenses that relate to your current contract that Oncore is managing.
Relevant Expenses include:
- Internet
- Mobile Phone
- Work Landline
Mobile phone, internet and landline charges paid for by you are claimable to the extent of the applicable business usage.
You must ensure:
- The service bill must include your name
- A tax invoice is required to verify the claimed amount. Please note that only the new charges added to a service bill are claimable. This excludes connection charges, late fees or credit card surcharges.
- You cannot have also claimed the Working From Home Fixed Rate Method ($0.67/hour), as this rate includes service bill costs.
Records to Support Your Business-Related Use
If your phone, data and internet use for work is incidental and you're not claiming more than $50.00 in total per financial year, you do not need to keep records.
To claim a deduction of more than $50.00, you need to keep records to show your business-related use.
Records you keep may include diary entries, including electronic records, and bills. Evidence that your employer expects you to work at home or make work-related calls from home will also help you show your entitlement to claim a deduction.
How to work out your business-related use
Incidental use
If your work use is incidental and you are not claiming a deduction of more than $50.00 in total, you do not need to keep records and you may make a claim based on the following, without having to analyse your bills:
$0.25 for work calls made from your landline
$0.75 for work calls made from your mobile
$0.10 for text messages sent from your mobile.
Usage is itemised on your bills
If you have a phone plan with an itemised bill, you need to work out your percentage of work use over a four-week representative period, which you can then apply to the full year.
Usage is not itemised on your bills
If you have a phone plan where you don’t receive an itemised bill, you determine your work use by keeping a record of all your calls over a four-week representative period and then calculate your claim using a reasonable basis.
Bundled phone and internet plans
Phone and internet services are often bundled. If you are claiming deductions for work-related use of one or more services, you need to apportion your costs based on your work use for each service.
If other members in your household also use the services, you need to take into account their use in your calculation.
If you are unsure if your use of these services constitutes business use, or you need some guidance to determine the percentage you may be able to claim, please follow this link to the ATO website for more information.
If, after reading this article, you are still unsure what types of expenses you may be able to claim under this category, please either send us an email at supportaus@oncoreservices.com, or phone us on 1300 654 484 and we will strive to answer any of your questions.