Accountant for Tradies
Fixed-fee tax returns and BAS for tradies working for themselves, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters and plasterers alike, whether you work for homeowners, builders or both, and for small trade companies with a few on the tools. Prepared and lodged by an experienced accountant, 100% online, so it fits around site hours.
- Business schedule and trade deductions
- Personal return included for sole traders
- Typically lodged in 5 business days
- Any software, or a spreadsheet and your invoices
One fixed fee, whichever way you're set up.
A sole trader invoicing in your own name, or a Pty Ltd. Both priced here, both including the trade deductions.
Sole trader
Invoicing in your own name, whoever you work for
- Sole trader tax return, personal return included$330
- Registered for GST+$110
- One or two on the tools with you+$110
- Personal return with the business schedule
- Ute, tools and site travel claimed, one logbook included
- Income reconciled, including anything builders reported
- Lodgement with the ATO
Company
Pty Ltd, registered with ASIC
- Company tax return$440
- Registered for GST, or with staff$660
- Your own personal return$150
- Company return and financial statements
- Wages and super reconciled for the two on payroll
- GST reconciled to your lodged BAS
- Lodgement with the ATO
Your invoices already live in an app. Your fee should reflect that.
If your income is invoices to customers and builders and your expenses are on a bank feed, the return is review and judgement, not data entry. You should not be paying for hours that never happened.
Hourly billing, an office visit during work hours, and weeks of waiting for what is usually a straightforward return.
Fixed fee. Published pricing. Typically five business days. Send the invoices from the ute.
Ute, van or truck: the one-tonne line decides everything
The ATO does not care what you call it. A vehicle built to carry under one tonne, which is most dual cabs, is a car for tax purposes. One tonne or more, which covers single cabs, most vans and trucks and some dual cabs, is not. Payload is the gross vehicle mass on the compliance plate less the kerb weight, so the answer is on the door pillar, not in the brochure.
Which side of the line you are on decides the method, the depreciation cap, and for a company whether the vehicle attracts fringe benefits tax at all. The ATO calls the idea that dual cabs are automatically exempt a myth. Your structure narrows it again, because a company or trust uses actual costs whatever it drives, which the guide to tradie tax deductions works through in full.
- Cents per kilometre, 88c for 2025-26 and 91c for 2026-27, capped at 5,000 km, or a logbook
- The car limit of $69,674 caps what you can depreciate
- Instant write-off only if the whole cost is under $20,000
- Actual running costs, no cents per kilometre
- No car limit on depreciation
- FBT-free for a company, if private use is minor, infrequent and irregular
Tools, and the $20,000 write-off
Anything you buy for the business that costs under $20,000 can be written off in full in the year you start using it, per asset, and that limit is now permanent from 1 July 2026. The ATO's own list of what qualifies reads like a ute tray: concrete mixers, drills, electric saws, grinders, ladders, nail guns, tool boxes, work lights.
The whole cost has to be under the limit, not just your business share. A $40,000 ute used 40% for work does not qualify, because $40,000 is over the line. Its business portion goes into the small business pool instead, depreciating at 15% in the first year and 30% after.
- Drills, saws, grinders and nail guns
- Ladders, tool boxes and work lights
- A concrete mixer or pressure washer
- A laptop or tablet you run the business from
- Anything costing $20,000 or more in total, the ute included
- The private share of a mixed-use item
GST starts at $75,000, and the quarter it started matters
Registration becomes compulsory once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, tested two ways: the last twelve months, and the next twelve. A strong quarter can tip you over before the year does, and you have 21 days from that point to register.
Once you are registered, GST goes on every invoice, to a homeowner or a builder, and you lodge a BAS each quarter, due 28 October, 28 February, 28 April and 28 July. How you show it changes with the customer, which our guide to GST on tradie quotes and invoices covers along with what a tax invoice has to carry. We work out whether you crossed the line, when, and what the first BAS has to show. Quarterly BAS is $150 a statement, on top of the return.
Work for builders? The ATO already knows what they paid you
Plenty of tradies work straight for the customer and can skip this one. If any of your income comes from a builder, it applies. A builder whose business is mainly building and construction has to report what it pays each subcontractor to the ATO by 28 August every year, and from tax time 2026 those amounts land in your own return as pre-fill, GST excluded, most of it after 28 August. Whether the builder should be treating you as a subcontractor at all is a different question, and subcontractor vs employee covers the two tests that now decide it.
So the return has to match what the builders said, which is why the ATO's own advice for sole traders is to lodge after 28 August. Lodge in July and the numbers arrive after you have, and the correction comes back later as an amended assessment. Everything else, the private customers and the cash jobs, is still yours to declare.
Behind a year or two? The letters come before the fines
Missing the date does not trigger an automatic fine. The ATO warns you by phone or in writing and issues a notice to lodge before it applies a failure to lodge penalty, and it generally lets an isolated late year go. When the penalty does apply it runs at one penalty unit for each 28 days late, capped at five, and a unit is $364 for infringements on or after 1 July 2026, so $1,820 per return at the ceiling.
The expensive version starts when the letters stop working and the ATO estimates your income for you, with none of your deductions. Catching up is quoted as one fixed fee in writing before any work starts, however many years it is.
How it works
Pick your fee
ABN or Pty Ltd. Unsure? Tell us and we'll point you at the right one.
Onboard online
About ten minutes. Share your invoices and bank feed, or your software login.
We prepare the return
Income reconciled, deductions reviewed, BAS if it applies. We come back to you if anything needs a look.
Approve and lodge
You review, you approve, we lodge with the ATO.
Do Tradies Charge GST? Registering, Quoting and Invoicing
When a tradie has to charge GST, how to quote a homeowner against a builder, the 7 things a tax invoice needs, and what to do if you are not registered.
Sole traders · Choosing an accountantSubcontractor vs Employee in Australia: Which Are You?
An ABN does not make you a contractor. How the ATO and Fair Work test it differently, the workers who are always employees, and the super you may be owed.
Companies · Sole tradersSole Trader vs Pty Ltd for Tradies: Which Structure and When
Sole trader or Pty Ltd as a tradie: what the 25% company rate really saves, when PSI cancels it, what a company costs to run, and what the ute becomes.
Sole traders · CompaniesTradie Tax Deductions: What You Can Claim in Australia
What tradies can claim in Australia: tools, the ute, protective gear, phone and licences, plus the vehicle rules that change with your structure.
Common questions from tradies
Do I have to lodge if I only earned a bit on the ABN?
Yes. There is no income threshold for business income. If you carried on a business during the year you lodge, even if it earned less than the tax-free threshold. The ATO's own words: you need to lodge even if you only earn $1.
When do I have to register for GST?
Once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, and you have 21 days to register once you are required to. The test looks at the last twelve months and the next twelve, so a strong quarter can tip you over before the year does.
Can I claim the ute?
The business portion, with records to support it. How it is worked out depends on whether the vehicle carries under one tonne (cents per kilometre or a logbook) or one tonne or more (actual costs), which is exactly the kind of judgement the fee is for.
Do you handle the BAS as well?
Yes. Quarterly BAS is $150 inc GST where the statement is GST only, $250 where it includes payroll, fuel tax credits or instalment variations, on top of the return whichever structure you are. See our BAS lodgement service.
I've set up a Pty Ltd this year. What changes?
The company lodges its own return with financial statements, and you lodge your own as well. We handle both together. The ute becomes a fringe benefits question rather than a business-use one, and wages to yourself or an apprentice bring payroll into it. See the company tax return service.
I do cash jobs for customers. Do they go in?
Yes. Pre-fill only shows what banks, builders and other third parties reported to the ATO, and the ATO's own tradie page says to include all of your income, cash jobs named specifically. Leaving them out is the kind of gap the ATO's data matching is built to find.
Who prepares my return?
Shane Burns, a registered Tax Agent with 15 or more years in practice. You deal with him directly, not a help desk.
Ready to get this year's return off the list?
Most clients are onboarded and lodged within two weeks.