Every Aussie's 2026 gameplan to maximise tax refund

Every July, millions of Australians sit down to do their tax return and leave money on the table. Not through anything dramatic, just through forgetting: the union fees paid in August, the work software renewed in February, the donation made during a December appeal. The refund you get back is mostly a function of how completely you claim what you already spent, so the gameplan below is really a memory aid with a method attached.

One thing before we start, and we'll repeat it because it matters: everything here is general and educational information, not tax advice. Whether any particular deduction applies to you depends entirely on your circumstances, and the ATO's rules and rates change from year to year. Check the current guidance at ato.gov.au and, for anything beyond a simple return, use a registered tax agent. With that said, here's how organised people approach FY2025-26.

Know what makes a deduction claimable

Before the list, the test. The ATO applies three golden rules to work-related claims: you spent the money yourself and weren't reimbursed, the expense directly relates to earning your income, and you have a record to prove it (usually a receipt). If a cost is partly private, you claim only the work portion. Every deduction below has to pass all three, and when the ATO disallows a claim it's usually because one of them failed, most often the record.

Claim every work-related deduction you're entitled to

This is the core of most refunds, and it's where the forgetting happens. Run through this list against your actual year, not your memory of it:

• Working from home: running costs for the hours you genuinely worked from home. There are two methods and the choice matters; more on that below.
• Car and travel for work: trips between workplaces, to clients, or to training. Your ordinary commute from home to work generally isn't claimable. Again, two methods; see below.
• Self-education: courses, conferences and study that maintain or improve the skills of your current job. Study aimed at getting a different job is generally not deductible, and the connection rules are nuanced, so check your situation.
• Tools and equipment: items you use for work, from a tradie's drill to a designer's monitor. Work items costing $300 or less can generally be claimed outright; more expensive items are claimed over their effective life. Apportion for any private use.
• Phone and internet: the work share of your plans, based on a reasonable pattern of use. Claiming 100% of a plan you also stream Netflix on is exactly what the ATO looks for.
• Union and professional fees: union dues, professional association memberships, and registrations your job requires.
• Uniforms and protective clothing: occupation-specific or registered uniforms, protective gear, and the cost of laundering them. Conventional clothing (a plain suit) is generally not deductible even if your employer requires it.
• Subscriptions and software: journals, trade publications, and software you use for work, apportioned for private use.

Whether each of these applies to you depends on your job and your facts, so treat the list as prompts, not permissions. The practical problem is simply finding them all: they're scattered across twelve months of bank statements. That's the job Kleev's EOFY tax-ready pack was built for: it reads the transactions you've already imported and builds per-category deduction tables from them, so the union fee from August and the February software renewal surface themselves instead of relying on your memory.

Pick the right method for working from home

If you work from home, you choose between two methods, and the choice can move your refund meaningfully. The fixed rate method gives you a set rate for every hour you genuinely worked from home (70 cents per hour at the time of writing for 2025-26, but confirm the current rate at ato.gov.au as it changes). It covers energy, phone, internet and stationery in one number, and you can still separately claim the decline in value of equipment like a desk or computer. The catch: you need a record of your actual hours worked from home, such as a diary or timesheet. An estimate like "about two days a week" doesn't meet the standard.

The actual cost method instead claims the work share of your real running costs: your actual electricity, internet and phone bills, apportioned. It's more paperwork, but if you run power-hungry equipment or a dedicated office, it can produce a bigger claim. Neither method is universally better; the right answer depends on your bills and your hours, which is a genuinely good question for a registered tax agent. Whichever you pick, the records requirement is real, so start the hours log now, not in June.

Choose between cents per km and the logbook

Car expenses have the same shape: two methods, one choice. The cents per kilometre method is the simple one: a set rate per work kilometre (88 cents at the time of writing for 2025-26, capped at 5,000 km per car; check ato.gov.au for the current rate), no receipts needed, though you must be able to show how you worked out your kilometres. The logbook method claims the work percentage of your actual car costs (fuel, insurance, registration, depreciation) based on a representative 12-week logbook. If you drive a lot for work, the logbook usually wins; if your work driving is occasional, cents per km is far less hassle.

Don't skip donations and tax agent fees

Two quiet categories that add up. Donations of $2 or more to organisations with deductible gift recipient (DGR) status are generally deductible, provided you received nothing material in return (raffle tickets and fundraising chocolates don't count) and you kept the receipt. Twelve months of $25 monthly donations is $300 of deductions that people routinely forget because no single one felt significant. And the fee you paid a registered tax agent to do last year's return is generally deductible in this year's, along with related costs of managing your tax affairs. It's a small, easy claim that also happens to fund the professional advice we keep telling you to get.

Keep records or the deduction doesn't exist

Here's the unglamorous rule that decides more refunds than any rate or threshold: if you can't substantiate a claim, you can't make it. The ATO generally expects you to keep records for five years, and "my accountant claimed it" is not a defence; the responsibility stays with you. Most disallowed deductions were probably legitimate. They just couldn't be proven, because the receipt was a thermal-paper ghost and the memory was gone.

The fix is boring and effective: capture the expense when it happens. Because Kleev already reads your real bank transactions, the work-related ones are sitting there with a date, an amount and a merchant attached; the EOFY tax-ready pack organises them into per-category deduction tables and exports the lot to Excel in one click, so what lands in front of your tax agent (or your myTax session) is an organised year, not a shoebox. You still need the underlying receipts for the claims that require them, but you'll know exactly which receipts to go hunting for. See your year organised in Kleev →

Time deductible purchases before 30 June

A deduction claimed this year is worth more than the same deduction next year, so if you were going to buy the work laptop or renew the professional membership anyway, doing it before 30 June brings the claim forward. Some prepayments (like 12 months of a professional subscription) can also generally be claimed upfront. Two cautions. First, never spend money just to get a deduction: you only get your marginal tax rate back, so a $1,000 purchase you didn't need still leaves you hundreds of dollars poorer. Second, the timing and prepayment rules have conditions, so confirm your specific situation before relying on them. The useful June exercise is reviewing what you've already spent and what you'd planned to spend anyway; a look at your year-to-date categories in Kleev makes that a ten-minute job rather than a statement archaeology session.

Claim your investment property properly

If you own a rental, this is likely your biggest deduction cluster, and also the ATO's favourite audit territory. The running costs of an income-producing property are generally deductible in the year you incur them: loan interest (the interest, never the principal), property management and letting fees, council and water rates, insurance, strata, and genuine repairs. The classic traps are claiming a capital improvement as a repair (a new kitchen is not a repair), claiming initial repairs on defects that existed when you bought, and forgetting a depreciation schedule from a quantity surveyor, which for many properties captures thousands in paper deductions people simply never commission. We've written a full checklist of what's deductible on a rental, and what isn't if property is a big part of your return.

The record keeping burden is heavier here too, because every claim needs to trace to a real cost across a whole year. Kleev's tax-ready pack includes a property schedule built straight from your property statement grid: the interest, rates, strata and repairs you tagged through the year, laid out by category and month, exportable alongside your personal deduction tables. Your accountant gets a clean schedule; you get the repair-vs-improvement judgement calls as the only open questions, which is exactly where a professional earns their fee.

Tread carefully with super and health cover

You'll also hear people talk about two other levers around EOFY: making a personal concessional contribution to super (which can be deductible if you follow the process, including lodging a notice of intent with your fund, and stay within the caps) and reviewing private health cover with an eye on the Medicare levy surcharge. We mention these only so the list is honest, not as suggestions. Both sit in regulated territory where the right answer depends heavily on your income, age, cap space and circumstances, and getting them wrong can cost real money. Don't act on either based on a blog post, ours included. Talk to a licensed financial adviser or a registered tax agent first, and check the current caps and thresholds at ato.gov.au.

Make EOFY a read-off, not a scramble

Put it together and the gameplan is short: know the three golden rules, sweep the full deduction list against your actual transactions, choose your WFH and car methods deliberately, capture donations and agent fees, do the property schedule properly, and keep records the whole way. None of it is exotic. All of it rewards being organised, which is the part Kleev handles: import your bank CSVs, tag as you go, and the EOFY tax-ready pack turns the year into per-category deduction tables and a property schedule with a one-click Excel export. July becomes a review, not a reconstruction. Get your tax-ready pack in Kleev →