You would be forgiven for thinking that doing your tax returns presents the same task each year.

But you would be quite wrong.

Yes, many of the rules remain the same year after year, but the numbers move around endlessly, and this year is no exception.

Moreover, the data collecting power of the Australian Taxation Office continues to evolve at breakneck pace.

Adrian Raftery is an honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne, a tax adviser and the author of 101 Ways to Save Money On Your Tax Legally.

He has outlined on The Australian’s The Money Puzzle podcast 10 tips that will maximise your returns this year.

This list is not exhaustive but it has some key tax hacks you should know, and some that may just be a revelation.

1. Make those voluntary super contributions

Yes, the government has done no favours for those trying to accumulate super after introducing a new tax for those with balances above $3m, but it has at least left the contribution concessions in place.

Anyone can contribute up to $30,000 a year into super. The contribution can be done pre-tax, which means it is taken out of your salary before you pay tax on it. That creates a double positive.

First, you get to add more money to your super and, second, on the money that you contribute you pay just 15 per cent tax instead of up to 45 per cent.

Remember the superannuation guarantee is 12 per cent, so your voluntary contribution is the gap between 12 per cent of your salary and $30,000. From July 1 you will be able to contribute $32,500 a year.

2. Load up the contributions you forgot in the past

Officially, they’re called catch-up contributions, and it works like this: If you have less than $500,000 in super then you are allowed to make up for lost time by making contributions relating to years in the past where you did not access these concessions.

As Raftery says: “Believe it or not, you can make six years’ worth of voluntary contributions if you can manage it.”

You can make five years’ worth of contributions at any one time and on top of that you can make your conventional annual contribution, which means six contributions all up.

The terms of the deal are based on the annual voluntary contributions rules (explained earlier) – just watch that the caps over the past five years varied from year to year.

“Five years ago the cap was only $25,000 but if you had put no money into super over five years you can potentially put in $137,500,” Raftery says.

3. Super is not the only tax-effective shelter for the salaried worker

They are often branded as “education bonds” and they are far from perfect, but investment bonds are one of the few tax shelters open to the investors who do not want to set off on the substantial journey of investing in negatively geared property.

This is how they work.

If you hold the bond for 10 years or more, the manager allows the individual to receive all eventual capital gains tax-free. Any ongoing tax due on the investments in the bond are taxed each year at 30 per cent.

Terms and conditions apply – especially if the investor takes the money out before the decade-long deal naturally expires.

Many advisers don’t like these products because they may have extra fees and they must invest conservatively to honour their long-term obligations.

Still, as Raftery says, “this is a relatively low-risk form of investing, and I like it as a form of forced savings”.

4. It’s time to think about the electric car

Novated leases sound exotic but they are not that complex.

You use your employer to lease a car and you pay for the lease out of your salary pre-tax (in a similar fashion to how you contribute to super pre-tax).

To incentivise the conversion to electric vehicles, the Albanese government has allowed lease payments on EVs to be fully deductible but petrol cars are only partially deductible.

Not everybody wants to lease their car. But if it suits you, then this is a complete free kick and indisputably the outstanding tax break during a petrol crisis.

5. Keeping a car logbook could increase your refund by thousands

The ATO has an off-the-shelf rate for petrol usage – 88 cents per kilometre – which sounds OK, except it has not allowed for the fact that petrol went up more than 40 per cent this year.

“It means you are costing yourself money by just claiming the minimum rate,” Raftery says.

In order to optimise your petrol usage deduction for work, Raftery suggests that if you use your car for work purposes and keep a logbook for 12 weeks, the deductions can be in the thousands.

He also says to make sure that you keep all costs associated with the running of your car such as petrol, insurance, registration, servicing and lease payments for the whole year, not just the period that you kept the logbook.

6. The best PAYG scheme you never heard of

You might be tired of paying the ATO as you go, but you can get the ATO to pay you as you go if you are negatively gearing a property.

In contrast to writing off your negative gearing costs in one big hit once a year, you can do it instead on an apportioned basis.

“High interest rates are causing stress and your cashflow is tight, you may want to complete a pay-as-you-go withholding variation application, which reduces the tax from each pay packet,” Raftery says.

“The form is virtually a ‘mini-tax return’, which estimates your taxable income. You still need to lodge an annual tax return, but don’t need to wait 12 months for the refund.”

7. Work from home (deductions) here to stay

Until very recently working from home was for the select few, now it is ubiquitous. But investors have yet to fully catch up with the tax opportunities around expenses linked to this area.

Just like your car expenses, the ATO offers an off-the-shelf write-off, this time at 70 cents an hour, relating to hours worked in the home office. Just like transport deductions, it can be much more lucrative to take the “actual costs” option.

“At an absolute minimum, keep a daily diary of your time that you work from home each day,” Raftery suggests.

“The ATO’s fixed-rate method of 70 cents per hour will probably be significantly less than actual deductions for the work-related portion of home telephone, internet, stationery, printers, computer equipment and consumables together with claiming a portion for electricity, gas and depreciation of home-based furniture under the actual costs method.”

8. Minimise your capital gains tax

There is a strong chance the government is going to effectively raise the rate of capital gains tax in the May budget by reducing the current 50 per cent discount on assets held for more than 12 months.

“Either way, it is always better to push out any CGT liability into the future so that if you made a capital gain, then you can reduce CGT by selling any non-performing shares that you may be currently holding,” Raftery says.

“Any unrealised gains should be sold after July 1, to defer tax for another year. And remember any capital losses incurred can be carried forward to future years, so keep a record of them. You have more time to pay it and the cost is deferred.”

9. Prepay interest

It might not sound attractive to pay money to anyone before you need to do so.

But as Raftery puts it: “If you are expecting that you will have a lower income next year (due to factors such as maternity leave, redundancy, a smaller or no bonus, or perhaps cutbacks to overtime), then why not prepay interest for up to 12 months in advance before year end on your rental property and reduce your higher income this year.”

10. Find your receipts

It may be pretty obvious but “no receipt, no deduction” remains the mantra in the tax office.

Raftery says investors these days have every sort of system, from advanced spreadsheet systems to cardboard boxes with paper receipts.

“It doesn’t matter; if you can find it within five minutes, it’s a good system,” he says.

Original article published here in The Australian.