Tax Return 2026: A New Year, New ATO Focus, New Rules
With the 2025-26 financial year ending on 30 June 2026, every individual taxpayer in Australia is about to file a tax return that looks different from last year’s. The fixed-rate working-from-home deduction has been increased to 70 cents per hour, the ATO has openly named four areas it will be scrutinising harder than ever, and data-matching now reaches into platforms most Australians didn’t realise the ATO could see.
This guide has been prepared by the team at Wiselink Accountants — a CPA-qualified, NTAA-registered tax agency in Melbourne (Camberwell) and Brisbane (Eight Mile Plains). We’ve broken down what’s new, what the ATO is watching, and exactly what you should be doing in the nine weeks between now and EOFY to lodge a clean, defendable, and optimised 2026 tax return.
What’s New for the 2025-26 Tax Return
Before we get to the ATO’s enforcement priorities, here are the four substantive changes Melbourne and Brisbane taxpayers need to know about.
1. Working-from-home fixed rate is now 70c per hour
For the 2025-26 income year, the ATO’s fixed-rate WFH method has been increased from 67 cents to 70 cents per work-from-home hour. This rate covers electricity, gas, internet, mobile and home phone use, and stationery and computer consumables — bundled into a single deductible figure.
This sounds generous, but there is a catch most people miss: you cannot also claim those bundled items separately. If you use the 70c method, you cannot then add a separate phone or internet deduction on top.
2. Stage 3 tax cuts are flowing through
The Stage 3 personal tax cuts are now fully embedded in the 2025-26 rates, which means most Australians will see a slightly higher net refund this year — or a smaller bill — compared with last financial year, all else being equal. That doesn’t excuse sloppy claims, but it does mean you should not be surprised if your refund looks different from last year’s even if your situation hasn’t changed.
3. Medicare Levy thresholds adjusted
The Medicare Levy low-income thresholds have been indexed. If your household income sits near the threshold for singles, families, or seniors and pensioners, double-check whether you now qualify for the Medicare Levy reduction or exemption — small adjustments can be worth several hundred dollars.
4. HECS/HELP indexation
HECS-HELP balances are indexed each year on 1 June. If you have a study loan, the timing of voluntary repayments before EOFY can affect the amount that gets indexed. Speak to your tax accountant before making any large pre-June payment.
The 4 ATO Focus Areas for 2026
The ATO has been very public about where it is concentrating its compliance resources for 2026. According to its tax-time messaging, the four highest-risk areas this year are:
- Work-from-home claims (especially without contemporaneous records)
- Rental property deductions (interest, repairs vs improvements, short-term letting income)
- Side hustle / sharing economy income (Uber, Airbnb, Stayz, Airtasker, eBay, Etsy)
- Multiple income sources, including capital gains on shares and crypto
Underpinning all four is the same engine: data-matching. The ATO now cross-references its records against banks, health funds, share registries, crypto exchanges (including CoinSpot, Swyftx and Binance Australia), and gig-economy platforms reporting under the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime. If you forget to declare $400 of Airbnb income, the ATO already has it.
Working From Home: What 70c Actually Buys You
The 70c-per-hour fixed-rate method is the default for most Melbourne employees who worked from home during 2025-26. It is simple, but it has hard rules:
What’s bundled in (and cannot be claimed separately)
- Electricity and gas for heating, cooling, and lighting your work area
- Internet (home wi-fi)
- Mobile and home phone usage
- Stationery and computer consumables
What you can still claim on top
- Decline in value (depreciation) of office furniture and tech (desk, chair, monitor, laptop)
- Repairs and maintenance of those assets
- Cleaning of a dedicated home-office space
Records the ATO will expect
This is the part most people get wrong. From 2023-24 onwards, the ATO has required a real-time record of your actual work-from-home hours — not an estimate written up in October the night before you lodge. Acceptable evidence includes:
- A diary or spreadsheet kept throughout the year
- Timesheets or roster records
- Calendar entries showing WFH days
- Login/logout records from your employer’s systems
If you don’t have any of the above, you cannot use the fixed-rate method. You must instead use the actual cost method, which is far more demanding (it requires receipts and apportionment for every item), or accept a smaller claim. This is where a registered tax agent in Melbourne can save you real money — by reconstructing a defensible record from the evidence you do have.
Rental Property: ATO Says 9 in 10 Landlords Get It Wrong
If you own a rental property in Victoria or Queensland, your 2026 return is more likely to be reviewed than at any time in the last decade. The ATO has stated that up to 90% of rental property tax returns contain at least one error, and the agency is using bank data, property records, and short-term letting platforms to find them.
The four issues we see most often in Melbourne investment-property returns:
Interest deductions that don’t match loan purpose
Interest is only deductible to the extent the loan is used for the rental. If you redrew $40,000 against the property loan to renovate your own home, that portion of the interest is not deductible. The ATO can — and now does — match loan statements line by line.
Repairs claimed as deductions when they are improvements
Replacing a broken hot-water system like-for-like is generally a repair. Replacing a kitchen with a new design, or putting in a new deck, is a capital improvement and must be depreciated over years rather than deducted upfront. This distinction is the single biggest area of dispute on rental returns.
Holiday and short-term-letting income not declared
The ATO receives data directly from Airbnb, Stayz, Booking.com and similar platforms. If you let your property — even just over the summer — that income is fully assessable, and your deductions must be apportioned for any periods of personal use.
Body corporate fees mis-categorised
Special levies for capital works are not immediately deductible. Routine administrative levies usually are. Get the split right.
Side Hustle Income: The Sharing Economy Reporting Regime
The single biggest behavioural shift the ATO is pushing in 2026 is making side-hustle income visible. Under the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime (SERR), platforms must now report transaction data to the ATO. That includes:
- Ride-share and food delivery (Uber, DiDi, Ola, Uber Eats, Menulog, Deliveroo, DoorDash)
- Short-term accommodation (Airbnb, Stayz, Booking.com)
- Task-based platforms (Airtasker, Hipages)
- Online marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, Amazon Australia) — being progressively included
- Content platforms (in many cases, including OnlyFans)
There is no minimum threshold. Even if your Etsy store earned $300 last year, you must declare it. The good news: most legitimate expenses connected to that income are deductible, and if you genuinely run a small side business, you may also be able to claim a portion of car running costs, equipment depreciation, or even a slice of your home office. This is exactly the kind of return where talking to a small business accountant in Melbourne pays for itself many times over.
Crypto, Shares, and Capital Gains
If you bought, sold, swapped, or staked crypto during 2025-26, you have a CGT event to report — even if you never converted back to Australian dollars. The ATO obtains transaction data directly from CoinSpot, Swyftx, Binance Australia, Independent Reserve, and several international exchanges with Australian users.
Three things every crypto holder should know:
- Swap = sale. Swapping ETH for SOL is a CGT event in Australia, even though no AUD changed hands.
- 50% CGT discount applies if you held the asset for more than 12 months and you are an individual (not a company).
- Capital losses from crypto can be carried forward and offset future capital gains — but only if you’ve reported the loss properly. If you held a token that went to zero, document the disposal carefully.
Wiselink works with a number of crypto investors and traders in Melbourne who use Koinly, CoinTracker, or CryptoTaxCalculator. If your transaction history is large or complex, bring the export — we’d rather check your numbers than rebuild them from scratch.
What to Bring to Your Melbourne Tax Agent
To make the most of your appointment with one of our tax accountants in Melbourne or Brisbane, gather the following before you come in:
- Income: PAYG payment summary (employer reports it directly to the ATO via STP, but bring it for cross-check), bank interest, dividend statements, managed-fund statements, rental statements, side-hustle platform earnings reports
- Crypto: full transaction export from each exchange you used, plus any wallets
- Deductions: WFH hours record, motor-vehicle logbook if claiming car expenses, donation receipts, professional subscriptions and union fees, self-education receipts, income-protection insurance premiums (not life insurance)
- Rental properties: full agent statement for the year, loan interest statement, depreciation schedule, body-corporate notices, council rates, water, insurance, repairs invoices
- Health: private health insurance statement (your insurer issues this)
- Last year’s return: especially if you’re a new client — it lets us check for carry-forward losses and prior-year mistakes
Why Use a Registered Tax Agent
If you lodge your own tax return, the deadline is 31 October 2026. If you lodge through a registered tax agent, you generally have until 15 May 2027 — provided you are on the agent’s client list before 31 October 2026. That nine-month difference is an enormous planning advantage.
More important than the deadline, though, is that the ATO treats returns prepared by a registered tax agent differently: claims supported by a tax agent’s reasoned position are far less likely to be challenged out-of-cycle, and any disputes that do arise are easier to resolve.
Wiselink Accountants is a registered tax agent in both Melbourne and Brisbane. Our team is CPA-qualified, NTAA-affiliated, and ASIC-registered. We service English-speaking and Mandarin-speaking clients, and we’ve helped over 500 small businesses, sole traders, and individual taxpayers across both cities. Whether your 2026 return is a simple PAYG salary lodgement or a multi-property, multi-platform, multi-currency reconciliation, we can handle it.
Related reading: EOFY 2026 Small Business Tax Checklist · Payday Super: What Employers Must Do Before July 2026 · Superannuation & SMSF services
Frequently Asked Questions
When can I lodge my 2025-26 tax return in Australia?
The 2025-26 financial year ends on 30 June 2026. The ATO begins processing tax returns from 1 July 2026, but pre-fill data (PAYG, interest, dividends, health fund, share-registry) usually isn’t fully available until mid-to-late July. Lodging in early July often results in amendments later, so we typically recommend lodging from late July onwards once pre-fill is stable.
What is the 2026 tax return deadline if I use a tax agent?
If you appoint Wiselink (or any registered tax agent) before 31 October 2026, your standard lodgement deadline becomes 15 May 2027. If you have prior-year returns outstanding, that extension may not apply — speak to us early so we can get you back on the agent program.
Do I have to declare crypto on my tax return in Australia?
Yes. Every disposal of crypto — including swaps between coins, paying for goods or services with crypto, and converting back to AUD — is a CGT event and must be reported. The ATO receives data directly from major Australian exchanges and many international ones, so non-reporting is no longer a realistic strategy.
Can I still claim home office expenses if I work hybrid (some days in the office)?
Yes. The 70c fixed-rate WFH method applies to the hours you actually worked from home, regardless of whether you also went into the office on other days. You will need a contemporaneous record of those work-from-home hours — a diary, calendar, or timesheet kept throughout the year, not estimated at year-end.
I haven’t kept proper WFH records — what are my options?
You cannot use the 70c fixed-rate method without a real-time record of hours. However, you may still be able to use the actual cost method based on bills, percentages of use, and floor-area apportionment — or claim a more conservative deduction supported by partial evidence such as work calendars, Teams/Zoom logs, or VPN access records. Bring whatever you have to your appointment; we can usually reconstruct something defensible.
Book Your 2026 Tax Return — Melbourne or Brisbane
The earlier you book, the better your outcome. Lodging in May 2027 with no plan is a much worse experience than lodging in August 2026 with a tax agent who has already mapped your WFH hours, rental deductions, and capital gains.
Book a 2026 tax return appointment with Wiselink:
- Melbourne (Camberwell): 03 9600 0803
- Brisbane (Eight Mile Plains): 07 3188 8081
- Email: info@wiselinkaccountants.com.au
- Online: wiselinkaccountants.com.au/contact
This article was prepared by the team at Wiselink Accountants, a CPA-qualified accounting and tax agency with offices in Melbourne (Camberwell) and Brisbane (Eight Mile Plains). We are registered tax agents and members of the National Tax & Accountants’ Association (NTAA). Last updated: 27 April 2026. This is general information only based on legislation in force at the date of publication and does not constitute personal tax or financial advice. Please contact us for advice specific to your circumstances.
