tax and paperwork

We had a much-needed day off from renovating today.  SO spent most of it out bike riding with his mates, while I got some housework done.  It was so nice to have a break!  As you may have gathered from the whiny tone of my last post, I’m looking forward to when it’s all finished.  That’s when you really appreciate it, it looks great, and it’s finally earning some income from tenants.

It’s rapidly coming up to the end of the financial year (30 June).  I dread this time of year, because for me it means Lots of Tax Paperwork.  I was really naughty last financial year, and didn’t get our tax stuff to our accountant until about February.  I’ve vowed that this year won’t be a repeat of that scenario.  Accordingly, I spent about two hours tonight organising paperwork.  This is a nice way of saying ‘doing filing’.  I can’t believe that there was so much stuff to be put into files.  I guess though, when you think about it, we have four units, plus our own house, all of which have their own paperwork and files; then SO has his file, and I have mine.  So really it’s understandable.

I haven’t even touched the data entry stuff yet.  Some of it I can’t do – we need to wait until the end of the financial year for our group certificates, and to work out how much interest we can claim.  However there are a lot of receipts which are sitting in a small but obvious pile which could be entered.  Hey, at least I know where they all are – that’s a step in the right direction.

Plus, tax this year will be easier as we only have one new investment property.  Last financial year we had three.  The amount of detail I had to find and give to our accountant relating to loan fees, purchase costs, etc, was unbelievable.  It really was a huge job.  This year I only have the one, which is a great relief.  It’ll be so much easier to manage.