Tax & Accounting

Reading notes

What each resource answers

• Individual income tax rates for 2026-27: what changed on 1 July

  Answers “what rate applies to my income this year?” — the first read before estimating any 2026-27 position. It sits first on this shelf because nearly every other resource in the collection assumes you already know which bracket your income lands in, and the marginal-rate arithmetic here is what turns any deduction or offset into an actual dollar figure. Return to it whenever a pay rise, bonus or second job moves your taxable income near a threshold.

• The standard deduction for work expenses from 2026-27: a floor, not a bonus

  Read before deciding whether to keep collecting receipts: it explains when itemising still beats the new floor. It earns its place because the measure is the most widely misread of the 2026 changes — the design is a floor beneath your work-related claims, not an amount added on top of them. Employees with modest expenses should read it once now to decide whether receipts are still worth keeping, and again before the 2026-27 return is lodged.

• Cents per kilometre or logbook? How to claim work-related car expenses

  For anyone driving for work without a logbook: what each method demands, while there is still time to keep one. It belongs in a personal-tax collection rather than a business one because the choice is made by employees as much as by sole traders — and it can only be made properly with twelve weeks of records behind it. If your work driving is growing, read it before the kilometres accumulate: the method decision is far easier made in advance than reconstructed at tax time.

• The six-year rule: treating a former home as your main residence for CGT

  Read the moment you move out of a home you might later rent — the choice is easiest made early. In practice this rule tends to arrive too late: by the time the question is asked, the property has been rented for years and the evidence of when it stopped being the main residence was never kept. If the home is already earning rent, read it alongside the CGT records checklist in the Property Investors collection, because the two problems are usually solved together.

• Division 293 tax explained: the extra 15% on super contributions for higher earners

  For the year income first passes the trigger point: it explains the assessment that otherwise arrives as a surprise. It is shelved here rather than under superannuation because the assessment lands through the personal tax system, and the income definition it uses is broader than taxable income alone — which is how bonuses, capital gains and fringe benefits can tip a single year over the line. Worth re-reading in any year with a one-off income spike, even if salary alone sits below the trigger.

• The CGT discount changes from 1 July 2027: what the law actually says

  Answers “does the timing of my sale matter?” — worth reading before settling on any disposal date. This is the resource in the collection where headlines and the enacted text diverge most sharply, and the transition date does the real work: the treatment turns on when the CGT event happens, not on when the asset was bought. Anyone holding an appreciating asset outside super should understand that timeline well before 1 July 2027 arrives.

• The Working Australians tax offset: law now, claimable from 2027-28

  An expectation-setter: what the new offset is worth, and why it is absent from this year’s return. Its job on this shelf is largely preventative — heading off the assumption that a legislated offset must be claimable immediately, when the first return it can appear in is still a year away. Read it if you are budgeting around announced tax relief, and note that the figure quoted in coverage is a ceiling tied to labour income, not a universal payment.

About this collection

Personal tax, documented layer by layer