What receipts should I keep for tax in Australia?

You do not need to keep every receipt you ever receive. You need to keep receipts for expenses you intend to claim as deductions — and a few other specific situations. Here is a practical breakdown.

Work-related expenses

Any expense you incur in doing your job — and which your employer has not reimbursed — is potentially deductible. This includes:

• Tools, equipment, and technology used for work
• Work uniforms, protective clothing, and occupation-specific clothing
• Home office expenses (electricity, internet, office furniture)
• Self-education courses, textbooks, and professional development directly related to your current job
• Professional subscriptions, union fees, and licence renewals
• Work travel — accommodation, meals, and transport when travelling overnight for work

Vehicle expenses

If you use your car for work (not including home-to-office commuting), you can claim either the cents-per-kilometre method or the logbook method. The logbook method requires receipts for all car running costs — fuel, servicing, registration, insurance, tyres.

Investment-related expenses

Interest on investment loans, account fees on investment accounts, and the cost of managing investments (tax agent fees, financial advice relating to your investments) are generally deductible. Keep receipts or statements for all of these.

Capital items

If you buy equipment, tools, or other assets that cost more than $300 and will last more than a year, you claim depreciation rather than an immediate deduction. Keep the original purchase receipt for as long as you own the item, plus five years after you dispose of it.

What you do not need to keep

Personal grocery receipts, clothing that is not a uniform or occupation-specific, personal entertainment, and anything your employer has reimbursed — none of these are deductible, so the receipts are not needed for tax.

A simple approach

In practice, the easiest approach is to capture every receipt that could conceivably be work-related, then categorise and filter at tax time. Receipt apps like rct-keep make this cheap to do — photographing a receipt takes less time than deciding whether to keep it.