Sole Trader Tax Return Checklist in Australia: What You Need
In Australia, a sole trader's tax return needs your business income and expenses for 1 July to 30 June, the records behind each deduction, your vehicle logbook or kilometre workings, a record of hours worked from home, assets you bought, PAYG instalments paid and your super fund's acknowledgement for any personal contribution. The ATO pre-fills wages, bank interest and payments others report to it, but not what you invoice clients yourself.
The ATO fills in your wages, your bank interest and the payments other businesses report about you. Everything else on a sole trader tax return checklist in Australia comes from your own records: what you invoiced, what you spent, and how much of the car and the spare room went to the business.
One item on the list has to happen in a set order. If you paid money into super yourself and want to claim it, your fund needs a notice of intent from you, and you need its written acknowledgement back, before you lodge. The notice is due by the day you lodge your return at the latest, so a return lodged first loses the deduction for that contribution.
Self-lodgers are due by 31 October, which for the 2025-26 year means Monday 2 November 2026 because 31 October falls on a Saturday. The tax return deadline guide covers the later dates available through an agent. The ATO’s share comes first below, then the list.
What the ATO already has, and what it doesn’t
Pre-fill only carries what someone else has reported to the ATO. For a sole trader, that covers the personal side of the return well and the business side thinly.
On the personal side, myTax pre-fills from employers, banks, health funds, government agencies and share registries, and the ATO says most of that arrives by late July. On the business side, the ATO’s myTax instructions for business income list the only streams it transfers:
- payments reported in a taxable payments annual report (TPAR), new for tax time 2026
- business income statements and payment summaries
- amounts withheld because you didn’t quote your ABN to a payer
- voluntary agreements, labour hire and other specified payments
- assessable government industry payments and grants
The only business expense it fills in is opening stock, carried over from last year’s closing stock.
Everything else is yours to enter:
- gross earnings from services you invoice yourself
- cash jobs and private clients
- every business expense
Pre-filled figures also need checking against your own records, and if one is wrong, the fix is with the organisation that reported it, not inside myTax.
If builders or a platform pay you
TPAR covers construction, courier and food delivery, and many gig economy platforms. The businesses that pay you report those payments to the ATO, and the ATO’s notice on the new TPAR pre-fill says most of that data is available after 28 August each year. Lodge in July or early August and the payments may not have landed yet, which the ATO warns can mean omissions, amendments and refunds repaid later.
The same notice says the pre-fill “isn’t a complete picture”. Cash jobs and private clients are still yours to declare.
For a self-lodger paid by builders or a delivery app, that leaves a window from late August to the 31 October due date in which the pre-fill is as complete as it will get.
Everything you earn and spend from 1 July to here goes on this return.
Wages, bank interest, health fund and government data.
Most data from builders, couriers and platforms is available after this date.
Monday 2 November in 2026, because 31 October is a Saturday. Later through an agent.
The checklist
Have these in front of you before you start, whether you lodge through myTax or hand the job to an accountant.
- Business income for 1 July to 30 June, including amounts the ATO pre-fills
- Business expenses, each with a record behind it
- A vehicle logbook, or your workings for kilometres travelled
- A record of hours worked from home, plus one bill for each running cost
- Invoices for equipment or other assets bought during the year
- The value of your trading stock at 30 June, if you hold stock
- Your PAYG instalment notices or activity statements for the year
- Your super fund's acknowledgement of any notice of intent
- Details of other income the ATO doesn't pre-fill, such as rent, crypto or foreign income
Rent, crypto and foreign income each need their own records, beyond the business ones below.
Business income and expenses
The document the return runs on is a profit and loss for the year. myTax asks for income and expense amounts “derived from your accounting system or financial statements”, so it takes your profit and loss figures as an input rather than working them out for you. The return itself is your individual return with a business schedule attached, and the guide to whether a sole trader needs an accountant sets out what that schedule asks for and the years when myTax handles it fine.
Income means all of it, including the TPAR payments and any other stream the ATO pre-fills. Those figures sit inside your total, not on top of it.
GST changes the numbers you use. If you are registered for GST, income goes in without the GST and expenses are reduced by the GST credits you claimed. If you aren’t registered, you claim the full GST-inclusive cost. A registered sole trader also has a cross-check on hand: the sales on the year’s activity statements, less the GST, should sit close to the income on the return, and a gap is worth explaining before you lodge. The BAS explainer covers what those statements report.
The record behind each expense
A receipt on its own isn’t always enough. The ATO’s record-keeping rules for business say a record should show the date, the amount, a description, the GST, the purpose of the transaction and, where relevant, the relationship between you and the other party.
The myTax instructions add three rules every business deduction has to pass:
- The expense was for your business, not for private use.
- Where it was both, you claim only the business portion.
- You have records to prove it.
Phone, internet, the laptop and the car are usually mixed use, so each needs a business percentage you can explain. For equipment, the ATO accepts a diary kept for a representative four-week period showing what the asset was used for and whether each use was business or private.
The vehicle
Which record you need depends on what you drive. Under the ATO’s definition, a car carries a load under one tonne and fewer than nine passengers.
For a car, a sole trader chooses between the logbook and cents per kilometre methods, and can change methods from year to year. A one-tonne ute or van isn’t a car under these rules, so neither method is available for it.
| What you drive | How the claim works | What to gather |
|---|---|---|
| Car, logbook method | Your business-use percentage of actual costs | A logbook kept for at least 12 continuous weeks in its first year, representative of the whole year and valid for five years, plus evidence of fuel and every other car expense |
| Car, cents per kilometre | 88 cents a kilometre for 2025-26, capped at 5,000 business kilometres per car | No receipts, but a record of how you worked out the kilometres, such as a diary |
| One-tonne ute or van | Actual costs only | Every running-cost receipt plus a record of business use |
The tradie deductions guide covers what can be claimed on the ute itself.
Working from home
Under the fixed rate method, 70 cents an hour for 2025-26, the ATO’s home-based business rules require:
- a record of all the hours you worked from home for the entire year, such as timesheets, a roster or a diary
- one monthly or quarterly bill for each expense the rate covers, such as electricity and your phone
- records of business and private use for equipment, which is claimed separately from the rate
An estimate of hours doesn’t meet that. If the hours weren’t recorded all year, the actual cost method is the alternative: receipts and bills for each running cost, and a diary for a representative four-week period that sets your pattern of business use.
Rent, mortgage interest, council rates and house insurance are a separate category. They are only claimable where part of the home is a genuine place of business, such as a signed workshop or a salon with its own client entry, and the personal services income rules can rule them out even then.
Assets you bought
For each piece of equipment bought during the year, keep the invoice showing the date and the full cost, and work out its business-use percentage. A business with turnover under $10 million can write off an asset costing less than $20,000 in full in the year it is first used or installed ready for use. The test is the asset’s full cost, not your business share of it, so a $25,000 vehicle used 60% for business is over the limit even though the business portion is $15,000. If you are registered for GST, the cost excludes the GST credit.
Asset records are kept for as long as you own the asset and for five years after you sell or dispose of it.
Closing stock
If you sell goods, count and value your trading stock at 30 June. That figure becomes next year’s opening stock, which myTax pre-fills from it, so an error carries into the following year.
PAYG instalments paid
PAYG instalments are prepayments of your income tax, not a deduction. When you lodge, the ATO credits every instalment you paid against the tax it works out for the year. Paid too much and the excess is refunded. Paid too little and you pay the shortfall. Have the year’s instalment notices or activity statements to hand so you can check that the credit on your notice of assessment matches what you paid.
Personal super contributions
Money you put into super yourself can be claimed as a deduction. The ATO’s rules on personal super contributions set the order:
The notice is due by the earlier of the day you lodge your return or the end of the following income year. One notice can cover all your contributions to a fund for the year, but each fund needs its own. If you roll the whole balance to another fund or withdraw it before sending the notice, the notice isn’t valid. A claimed contribution counts towards your concessional contributions cap and is taxed at 15% inside the fund.
Your records, in whatever form they’re in
The list above is about what the records show, not what they’re kept in. All major accounting software works (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Wave, Reckon, Sage, Zoho Books and others). A spreadsheet, or your bank transactions plus a list of expenses, are fine starting points too.
If you hand the list to us, our sole trader tax return is a fixed fee that assumes tax-ready records. Tell us what you have and we’ll let you know before any work begins.
For next year, the myDeductions tool in the ATO app records sole trader income and expenses as you go, and the records can be uploaded to myTax or emailed to a registered tax agent.
Keep it for five years
Once the return is lodged, the records behind it stay on file. The ATO’s general rule is five years, counted from when you prepared or obtained the record or completed the transaction, whichever is later. Depreciating assets run longer, as above. Digital copies count, provided they can’t be altered and you can produce them if the ATO asks.
Lodging yourself, the due date is 31 October. Handing it over, this list is what your accountant will ask for.
Quick answers
Does myTax pre-fill my business income as a sole trader?
Only income someone else reports to the ATO. That covers payments in a taxable payments annual report (new for tax time 2026), business income statements, amounts withheld because an ABN was not quoted, and assessable government industry payments. What you invoice clients yourself, cash jobs and private work are entered by you, and so is every business expense.
Do I need a profit and loss statement for my sole trader tax return?
You need its figures. myTax asks for income and expense amounts taken from your accounting system or financial statements, so it uses a profit and loss as its input rather than producing one. The figures do not have to come from accounting software: totals worked up from a spreadsheet or your bank transactions do the same job.
Are PAYG instalments tax deductible?
No. They are prepayments of your income tax. When you lodge, the ATO credits the instalments you paid against the tax it works out for the year. If you paid too much the excess is refunded, and if you paid too little you pay the shortfall.
Can a sole trader claim the super they paid themselves?
Yes, if you give your super fund a notice of intent in the approved form and receive its acknowledgement before you lodge. The deduction is claimed at Personal super contributions and counts towards your concessional contributions cap. The notice is due by the day you lodge at the latest, so a return lodged first loses the deduction for that contribution.
How long do I need to keep my sole trader records?
Most records for five years, counted from when you prepared or obtained the record or completed the transaction, whichever is later. Records for a depreciating asset are kept while you own it and for five years after you dispose of it.