Record Keeping Tips

Friday 19th, August 2011

Record Keeping Tips

The start of the new financial year is a good time to look ahead and think about your record keeping for the 2012 tax year.

Shoeboxes

In spite of the jokes it can be a good idea to keep an empty shoebox somewhere handy at home. This is a great place to keep any work, business, study or medical related receipts and invoices in that you collect over the year.

If you get into the habit of going 'straight to the shoebox' instead of 'straight to the pool room' with any receipts, and then at year end you will find most of what you need for your tax return in the one place. All you'll need to do will be to sort the receipts into categories and total.

 Email

We often receive invoices via email these days, it's a great idea to set up a 'Tax' folder within your email and store anything tax related in this folder. This will ensure you don't accidentally delete the emails and you wont have to search your emails at tax time.

Medical Expenses

At the start of the new financial year, hopefully you are feeling healthy and you may not anticipate having substantial medical bills.  While we hope you stay fit and well, it's a good idea to keep all your receipts etc as the year goes on, in case you have any unexpected large bills. There is a tax offset for out-of-pocket medical expenses once they go over the $2000 threshold. Medical expenses include things like dental bills, new prescription glasses, chiropractor visits and IVF Treatment just to name a few.

For all your income tax queries please contact our office on 5331 2322 and one of our friendly team will assist you.