Sole traders

Common errors that the ATO are seeing include:

• omitting income such as salary or wages earned outside of their business. Including non-monetary payments or payments in kind
• incorrectly claiming expenses, for example, claiming for the portion of an expense related to personal use or overstating the cost of goods sold and other business expenses
• incorrectly calculating business losses
• incorrectly applying non-commercial loss rules to offset the loss against other income
• incorrectly claiming PAYG withholding refunds
• incorrectly reporting or failing to report personal services income (PSI)
• Avoid making these mistakes by using the ATO small business tax time toolkit. There’s a directory of links, including information on business income and deductions to help small businesses get things right.