And pretty much everyone else as well, from Tax Commissioner Jordan:
In his Wednesday address, Mr Jordan said approximately 6.3 million Australians claimed a $150 tax deduction for clothing expenses, totalling $1.8 billion. He questioned whether people knew they were not simply entitled to it.
“That would mean that almost half of the individual taxpayer population was required to wear a uniform – suits are not uniforms – or protective clothing or had some special requirements for things like sunglasses and hats and a variety of other things. Half the population.”
The tax chief also said that people wrongly claiming car expenses and the $44 billion in expenses claimed by landlords, which means negative gearing is costing over $3 billion a year, were also “well and truly” in the Tax Office’s sights.
“There is about $40 billion in rental income and about $44 billion of rental deductions resulting in around $3.6 billion net rental loss. These are the areas we are going to focus on,” Mr Jordan said.
Mr Jordan said the ATO was shifting its focus away from multinationals to the cash economy and rorting of claims by individuals and small businesses.
I will go on record here and state that I do not claim the laundry allowance for my uniform:
