Tax deductions you never knew you could make
Disappointed with last year’s return? Here’s some of the lesser known deductions to ensure you get the most out your claim
3 min
Making sure you claim everything you’re legitimately eligible for can have a big impact on your annual discretionary income. But do you know what you can claim?
What is tax deductible?
When completing your tax return, bear in mind that there are a number of tax deductions you can claim against expenses related to your work. What each person can claim will vary depending on their occupation. To make a deduction for a work-related expense, you need to have spent the money yourself without being reimbursed by work, and the cost needs to directly relate to earning your income. You’re also going to need a record to prove the expense, usually a receipt.
While travel expenses, home office expenses, education and mobile phone expenses are commonly claimed, there are a number of deductions often overlooked that you may be able to claim when completing your tax return.
Artwork
Regardless of why you bought your latest artwork, the Australian Taxation Office views artwork as both an investment and a depreciating asset, meaning you can claim it as a tax deduction. How much you can claim will be determined by the size of your business and whether you are an employee.
If you work from home, you can claim a deduction for your artwork up to the value of $300 as part of your home office expenditure. Small and medium sized business owners can make a much higher claim for artwork.
An apartment in another city
Investment properties purchased away from your home that you stay in when travelling for work can be claimed.
Under ATO guidelines, if you’re required to work away from home and you choose to rent or buy an apartment in the other work location rather than relying on hotel accommodation, you can claim a deduction for the work-related costs that apply to the apartment. This includes rent or interest on the mortgage.
Work handbag
Each year, you are allowed to claim a bag that you use for work. This could be a laptop bag or backpack used for carrying work-related items, but claiming a designer luxury handbag, may raise a few eyebrows at the ATO. If you carry your laptop, tablet and paperwork in a bag for work, then claim it. If you’re using it for gym equipment or your lunch, don’t.
COVID tests
The ATO will let you claim the cost of a COVID test if it was used to see whether you are sick and therefore unable to attend work. This is particularly the case if you’re in a customer-facing role and you need to purchase the test to stop the spread of the disease.
Man’s best friend
In some limited circumstances, you may be able to claim a deduction for the cost of buying and caring for a dog if they assist in your occupation. The two most common scenarios for this claim are farming and security reasons.
A caravan
The ATO allows for travel expense claims and there have been instances where taxpayers have claimed a caravan — and it was accepted. If you travel extensively for work and a caravan is saving you from paying for a hotel room, you may be able to apportion the deduction if it is used for work, rather than private use.
Meals away from home
If you’re travelling for work, you can claim the cost of meals when you travel and stay away from home overnight. You may also be able to claim a deduction for the cost of a meal you buy and consume when working overtime.
Media subscriptions
Many media publications are now subscription-based and can be deductible if they relate to your profession. This includes subscriptions to newspapers, professional magazines and podcasts that are linked to your profession.
Desk lamps and stationery
You don’t have to be running a business from home to make work-related claims. If you have a dedicated workspace at home where you’re doing a few hours of work at home a week, you can claim a number of related items, including lamps, stationery, a shredder and printer cartridges.
Protective clothing
If it’s related to your work, you can claim
the cost of buying items like fire resistant clothing, steel-capped boots, hi-vis vests or sun protection. This can apply to people working directly on site, like construction workers, but also related industries, such as engineers and architects who visit.
Depending on your industry, you can claim items that relate to your work, including a bullet proof vest if you’re a police officer or anything used that relates to your performance if you’re a professional athlete. Media professionals can also claim sunglasses if they are required to be out in the sun in the course of their work.
While you’re at it, you may also be able to claim the costs to clean occupation-specific clothing, so ask your tax accountant.
Tax accountancy fees
Last but not least, the fees you pay for the preparation of your annual tax return if you used a tax agent to prepare and lodge your tax return can be claimed on this year’s tax return.
The ATO has a number of online tools and calculators to help you calculate your deduction correctly, including work from home, self-education and car expenses.
Visit the ATO website and type ‘calculators’ into the search bar.
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Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
4 minA sharp technology sell-off has exposed a new anxiety on global markets: whether the enormous borrowing behind the artificial-intelligence infrastructure boom can generate sufficient returns as interest rates rise and Chinese competition intensifies.
The artificial-intelligence investment boom has powered technology shares, semiconductor manufacturers and data-centre operators to extraordinary heights. Last week, investors were given a reminder that much of this expansion is being built with borrowed money.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 4.5 per cent over the week ended October 16, its weakest performance since late June. Semiconductor shares suffered an even deeper correction, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index losing about 11.4 per cent.
The selling spread quickly through global markets. Micron Technology fell 14.6 per cent over the week, while South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped approximately 18 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.
This was more than a routine bout of profit-taking. Investors were reassessing three interconnected risks: higher interest rates, the rapidly expanding debt burden attached to AI infrastructure and the prospect of stronger competition from Chinese memory-chip manufacturers.
The debt behind the AI build-out
Artificial intelligence requires a physical infrastructure network of enormous scale. Data centres must be built, advanced processors purchased, power supplies secured and cooling systems installed before customers begin generating meaningful revenue from them.
Technology companies are increasingly supplementing their own cash with corporate bonds, syndicated loans, equipment leases, private credit and project-level financing.
JPMorgan describes the emerging funding model as a combination of conventional corporate borrowing and project finance tied to individual data-centre assets. In Australia, the Reserve Bank estimates that syndicated loans accounted for approximately three-quarters of data-centre financing during 2025 and 2026 to date.
The numbers are becoming large enough to affect broader credit markets. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has cited Wall Street estimates suggesting AI-related investment-grade bond issuance could approach US$300 billion in 2026 alone.
That borrowing is not automatically problematic. Debt can be an efficient way to finance long-lived infrastructure when future revenue is sufficiently predictable. The concern is that AI technology, customer demand and computing economics are changing much faster than the repayment schedules attached to the assets.
A data centre financed today may carry debt for years. Investors must therefore make assumptions about future utilisation rates, electricity prices, chip performance, customer concentration and the amount businesses will ultimately pay for AI computing.
When interest rates rise, those assumptions become less forgiving.
Inflation changes the calculation
September’s US inflation data intensified the pressure. Consumer prices increased 3.7 per cent over the year, ahead of market expectations and up from 3.4 per cent in August.
The hotter reading reduced confidence that interest rates would fall quickly and pushed bond yields higher. That matters particularly for companies whose valuations depend on profits expected well into the future, as well as highly leveraged infrastructure operators that may need to refinance.
CoreWeave has emerged as a closely watched test case. The specialist cloud-computing company has accumulated substantial debt and lease obligations to build AI capacity, while relying on a concentrated group of large technology customers.
Its shares fell sharply during the sell-off, while the cost of insuring its debt against default climbed. CoreWeave has argued that its contracted backlog more than covers its obligations and that financial markets do not always understand its business model. Nevertheless, its securities have become a proxy for investor confidence in debt-funded AI infrastructure.
Oracle, another major investor in AI computing capacity, fell 8.8 per cent in Friday trading, while CoreWeave dropped 15.5 per cent.
The question is shifting from how much AI infrastructure can be built to how profitably it can be operated.
China adds another source of pressure
Interest rates were not the only catalyst. Reports of advances by Chinese memory-chip producer ChangXin Memory Technologies raised concerns that lower-cost Chinese products could increase competition across the global semiconductor industry.
Memory chips are essential to AI systems, but the industry is historically cyclical. Periods of tight supply and high pricing can encourage rapid investment, eventually producing oversupply and falling margins.
The prospect of a well-funded Chinese competitor expanding its technological capabilities unsettled investors in Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. It also demonstrated that AI-related demand does not insulate chipmakers from conventional competitive pressures.
That combination—slower rate cuts, more expensive financing and potentially cheaper supply—challenged the assumption that every company exposed to AI would enjoy continually expanding margins.
A reset rather than the end of the boom
The sell-off does not establish that the AI boom is ending. Demand for computing power remains strong, the largest technology companies continue to generate formidable cash flows and many infrastructure projects are backed by long-term customer contracts.
What has changed is the market’s willingness to overlook the price and financing structure of that growth.
The most resilient companies are likely to be those able to fund investment from operating cash flow, secure long-duration customers and demonstrate that new capacity will earn returns comfortably above its financing costs.
More speculative operators may face greater scrutiny, particularly where debt is expensive, customers are concentrated or expected revenue depends on demand that has not yet materialised.
For Australian investors, the lesson extends beyond US technology shares. Local data-centre operators, infrastructure funds, electricity suppliers and property groups are increasingly exposed to the same investment cycle.
Artificial intelligence may remain one of the defining growth themes of the decade. But last week’s correction showed that enthusiasm for the technology does not eliminate financial discipline.
The next stage of the AI boom will be judged not only by computing power, model performance or demand for chips, but by something more traditional: whether the assets being financed can generate enough cash to repay the money borrowed to build them.
Fact box
Nasdaq Composite: Down 4.5 per cent for the week ended October 16, 2026
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index: Down approximately 11.4 per cent
Micron Technology: Down approximately 14.6 per cent
Samsung Electronics: Down approximately 18 per cent
SK Hynix: Down approximately 24 per cent
US September inflation: 3.7 per cent annually
Estimated 2026 AI-related investment-grade issuance: Approximately US$300 billion
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