Are you using your pay to its full potential?
Thinking about that new smartwatch? Salary sacrifice it!
In today’s work environment, it’s too easy to get sucked into time-wasting activities like scrolling message chains and social media feeds, reading news sites and getting lost in your email inboxes (yes, who else has way too many inboxes?).
Enter the smartwatch. On the surface, it can seem like a smartwatch will just amplify your constant distraction and connection problems, but, in fact, it can help.
With enough functions to keep you aware of what’s going on and respond briefly if required, yet not enough to have you sliding down that rabbit whole of emails, social media and news; a smartwatch could see you make gains on your productivity and eliminate mindless activity.
Recognised as a legitimate tax expense if you can show a need for it (i.e. for incoming emails in a role where you are not chained to your desk), your smartwatch purchase can not only save you time, but money too.
Multiple portable devices
It’s not just smartwatches you can claim with ease, either. If you use multiple tech devices for your work — smartphone, tablet, laptop — it’s time to consider salary sacrifice to save you money and reduce your taxable income.
Portable assets are regarded as Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exempt items if the primary use is more than 50 per cent related to your work.
Salary Sacrifice can benefit you by giving you the opportunity to claim the cost of a portable asset (such as a laptop, tablet or phone) in a single FBT year (1 April to 31 March) from pre-tax earnings, rather than depreciation on your tax return over multiple years and apportioning for private usage. Additionally, Bookssorted rebates the Goods and Services Tax (GST) back to you.
Claiming your devices
It’s important to note that you can only claim two portable devices per FBT year — one for receiving work/data (a smartphone or a smartwatch) and one for sending work/data (a laptop or tablet). Owing to this, it is best to think about how you time your device purchases.
If you need to, however, buy more devices in the one year, it is best to redeem your higher purchase through salary sacrifice, and then claim the lower cost device/s on your tax return. You could also purchase one item at the end of the FBT year (late March) and another item early in the following FBT year (early April). If you’ve already claimed your portable asset, you cannot change which asset is claimed at the end of the FBT year, so be sure to plan ahead
More information
Be sure to check out our previous blog on using your pay to its full potential for more information about claiming portable assets and have a chat with your accountant to see if your individual situation fits the bill for a smartwatch.
What smartwatch do you have your eye on?
And let us know what smartwatch you use or you are lusting after. We’d love some intel about what watch works for you!