MDS Accounting & Financial Services

Each tax season the ATO says what it plans to read closely. This year's list, in plain terms: income that never made it onto a payment summary (side work, rental income, interest, sold assets), work-related expenses without records behind them, working-from-home claims, and, new for 2026, tax tips generated by AI tools and social media finfluencers.

Treat it as a study guide. You can still claim everything you are entitled to; the list simply tells you where the paperwork behind a claim matters most this year. In our experience the difference between a claim that stands and a claim that wobbles is almost never the deduction itself. It is the record sitting behind it.

And if you have collected tax tips from a feed this winter, bring them to your appointment. Genuinely. Some will be right, and we will tell you which ones, and set the rest down gently.

General information only; your return depends on your circumstances.

Book your return with MDS, link in bio.

📞 03 5333 3453
🗓️ mdsaccounting.net.au/contact-us

A tax return moves quickly when the paperwork arrives together. The good news: most of it is already sitting in your phone or your inbox.

What we like to see at the first appointment:

· Your income statement (usually finalised in myGov by late July)
· Private health insurance statement
· Receipts for anything bought for work
· Your record of hours if you worked from home
· Interest summaries, dividend statements
· Rental income and expenses, if you have a property
· Records of any shares, property or crypto sold, with dates and amounts
· Last year's return, if you are new to us

Sold something and not sure it matters? That last folder is the one people underestimate.

And the standing rule: if you are not sure whether something counts, bring it anyway. Deciding what matters is our job, and an extra document is a far smaller problem than a missing one.

Book your return with MDS, link in bio.

📞 03 5333 3453
🗓️ mdsaccounting.net.au/contact-us

Finance on screen is trading floors and someone slamming a phone down.

Finance in real life is a Tuesday, and somebody on page nine of the lease, checking what the outgoings clause actually says.

That person is the one who notices the loan account was never classified. Who asks what it was for, then asks again when the answer gets vague. Who tells you in January that the number you wanted is not the number you have, while there is still time to do something about it.

None of that makes a good scene. It makes a good year.

The person who says the inconvenient thing early tends to cost you less than the one who agrees with you.

31 October is the date most people know. It is the due date for lodging your own 2025-26 return. This year it lands on a Saturday, so the practical cut off is Monday 2 November 2026.

The part fewer people know is what that date does if you use a registered tax agent.

If you are on a registered agent's client list before 31 October, your return generally falls under that agent's lodgement program, and the due date can extend well into the following year. In many cases that means 15 May 2027.

It is not automatic. It depends on your earlier lodgements being up to date. Turn up in March with two years outstanding and the extension usually is not available.

Which makes October less about lodging and more about being registered. If you already work with an agent, you are likely covered already. If you do not, registering is one quick step, and doing it before 31 October keeps every option open.

Book now to join the MDS client list before 31 October. Link in bio.

General information only. Your situation determines what applies to you.

A change most property investors have heard about and very few have done anything with yet.

From 1 July 2027, the 50% CGT discount for individuals, trusts and partnerships is replaced. In its place, cost base indexation plus a 30% minimum tax rate on capital gains. Negative gearing on residential property is limited to new builds.

Both measures are law. They received Royal Assent on 26 June 2026, so this is settled with a start date rather than an announcement to watch.

Two things that haven’t changed are. First, the main residence exemption stays exactly as it is. Second, if you already owned a property at 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026, it keeps its negative gearing eligibility

The transition is the interesting part. The reforms apply to gains that accrue after 1 July 2027, which means a single asset can run under two different sets of rules across its life, split at one date. How the value at that date gets established depends on the asset, and detailed ATO guidance on the mechanics is still landing.

What this means for any particular asset depends on when you bought it, what it has done since, who owns it, and what you intend to do with it. There is no general answer, and anyone offering one on the internet is guessing.

General information only, current at the date of posting. It does not take your objectives, financial situation or needs into account. Seek advice specific to you before acting.

Ten years is forty BAS quarters, ten sets of books closed, and a number of tax returns nobody has counted.

Brad Martin marks ten years at MDS, as Partner and Client Manager out of our Ballarat office.

A decade is long enough to have watched a fair bit arrive. Single Touch Payroll in 2018, then again for smaller employers in 2019, with every one of them needing to be walked through it. March 2020, when JobKeeper turnover tests were worked out client by client, quickly, with a great deal riding on getting them right. Interest rates going about as low as rates go, then climbing back. Enough legislative change since 2016 that listing it properly would run longer than this caption.

What that leaves behind does not show up on a CV. People rarely ring their accountant about a form. They ring because something has happened, and they would rather explain it to someone who already knows the background. A decade is roughly how long that takes to build.

Thank you, Brad. From all of us.