7 EOFY Tax Tips: How to Maximise Tax Refunds

It’s that time of year again. The financial year is drawing to a close, EOFY sale emails are flooding your inbox, and somewhere in the back of your mind you’re wondering: am I going to get a decent tax refund this year?

With a bit of forward planning before 30 June, you might be surprised how much you can get back. The slightly annoying news? You need to act now, because once the clock strikes midnight on 30 June, most of these opportunities disappear for good.

We’ve put together this practical guide of EOFY tax tips to help everyday Australians (and a few extraordinary ones) make the most of the 2025–26 financial year before it’s gone, and discover how to maximise tax refunds. No fluff, just strategies that actually move the needle.

Important note: This article contains general information only. Everyone’s situation is different, so please speak with a qualified financial adviser or registered tax agent before making decisions. If you’d like personalised guidance, our team at HPartners is happy to help.

1. Top Up Your Super Before 30 June

Superannuation remains one of the most powerful EOFY tax tips tools available to Australians, and EOFY is the single best time to use it.

Here’s why: contributions made to your super from your pre-tax income (called concessional contributions) are only taxed at 15% inside the fund. If your marginal tax rate is 30%, 37%, or 45%, that’s a very meaningful difference. Essentially, topping up your super before 30 June can reduce the amount of income that gets taxed at your full rate.

For the 2025–26 financial year, the concessional contributions cap is $30,000. This includes your employer’s compulsory Super Guarantee contributions, any salary sacrifice amounts, and any personal contributions you intend to claim as a tax deduction.

If you’re planning to make a personal deductible contribution, there are two critical steps to tick off:

1. Get the money to your super fund before 30 June. Most super funds need several business days to process contributions, so don’t leave it until the last minute. Many funds stop accepting contributions well before 30 June itself.
2. Lodge a Notice of Intent to Claim a Deduction with your fund before you file your tax return. Skip this step and your contribution won’t be treated as a deductible one — and you won’t get the tax benefit.

Don’t Forget the Carry-Forward Rule

Here’s one of the EOFY tax tips that many Australians are still unaware of: if your total super balance is below $500,000, you may be able to carry forward unused concessional cap amounts from up to five previous financial years and use them all in one hit.

This can be enormously valuable if you’ve had a higher-than-usual income year (a bonus, a redundancy payout, or a capital gain on an investment) because it allows you to shelter a larger chunk of income in your super at the concessional 15% tax rate rather than your marginal rate.

You can check your available carry-forward balance by logging into myGov and navigating to the ATO portal under Super → Information → Carry Forward Concessional Contributions.

2. Make the Most of Work From Home Tax Deductions

If you’ve worked from home at all during 2025–26, you may be able to claim a deduction for the cost of running your home office.

There are two ways to calculate work from home tax deductions:

The Fixed Rate Method: You can claim 70 cents per hour worked from home. This rate covers electricity, gas, internet, phone costs, stationery, and computer consumables. To use this method, you need to have kept a record of all hours worked from home throughout the financial year – not just a four-week sample, but the whole year.

The Actual Cost Method: You track and claim the precise cost of each work-related expense. This can result in a larger deduction if your actual home office costs are high, but it requires meticulous record-keeping.

Either way, you can also separately claim the depreciation of work-related assets such as a desk, office chair, or computer, as long as they were primarily used for work.

One area where people often go wrong: you cannot claim general household expenses like rent, mortgage repayments, or your entire electricity bill. Only the work-related portion counts. The ATO has significantly improved its data-matching capabilities, so accuracy really matters here.

3. Pre-pay Deductible Expenses Before 30 June

One of the simplest and most underused EOFY tax tips and strategies is pre-paying expenses that you’ll incur in the first 12 months of the next financial year, bringing the deduction forward into the 2025–26 return.

This can apply to a range of costs, including:

• Professional association memberships and subscriptions
• Income protection insurance premiums
• Investment loan interest (for property investors)
• Professional development courses or journals
• Business-related software subscriptions

The key ATO rule is that the prepayment period must not exceed 12 months, and the expense must genuinely relate to income-earning activities. Keep your receipts and make sure the payment clears by 30 June.

For property investors in particular, prepaying loan interest on an investment property can be a meaningful deduction worth exploring. Our Investment Planning team can help you assess whether this strategy makes sense for your situation.

4. EOFY Tax Tips: Review Your Investment Portfolio for Capital Gains and Losses

If you’ve sold any investments this financial year — shares, property, managed funds, or crypto — you’ll need to report the capital gains in your tax return. But EOFY is also a good time to look at whether you have any unrealised losses sitting in your portfolio that could be crystallised before 30 June to offset those gains.

This strategy (sometimes called “tax-loss harvesting”) involves selling an underperforming investment before year end to generate a capital loss, which can be used to reduce your overall capital gains tax (CGT) liability.

A few important things to keep in mind:

• The 12-month rule: If you’ve held an asset for more than 12 months, you’re only taxed on 50% of the capital gain. This is a significant discount, so the timing of sales matters a great deal.
• Be wary of wash-sale arrangements: The ATO may look unfavourably on situations where you sell an asset purely to generate a loss and immediately repurchase the same asset. Substance matters.
• Timing carries real tax consequences: If you’re on the fence about selling an investment, a conversation with a financial adviser before 30 June could save you a meaningful amount.

5. Donate to a Registered Charity

If philanthropy is already on your radar, EOFY is a natural time to act, because donations to Deductible Gift Recipients (DGRs) are tax-deductible, and the deduction applies to the financial year in which you made the gift.

To qualify, the charity must be registered as a DGR with the ATO (you can verify this via the ABN Lookup), and your donation must be $2 or more. Keep your donation receipt – you’ll need it when lodging your return.

There’s no upper limit on how much you can donate and claim (subject to your taxable income), so for those in higher tax brackets, a meaningful donation can result in a meaningful reduction in tax, while also doing some good in the world. Not a bad combination.

6. Don’t Forget These Often-Missed Deductions

Beyond the big EOFY tax tips above, there’s a long list of smaller deductions that Australians regularly leave on the table simply because they didn’t know they could claim them. Here are some worth checking:

• Union fees and professional association memberships — fully deductible if related to your work.
• Tax agent fees — yes, the cost of having someone help you with last year’s tax return is deductible in this year’s return.
• Work-related car expenses — if you use your personal vehicle for work purposes (not just commuting to and from work), you may be able to claim using the cents per kilometre method or via a logbook. If your logbook is more than five years old, you need to start a new one before 30 June.
• Self-education expenses — courses, textbooks, and other study costs may be deductible if they relate to your current job.
• Phone and internet costs — the work-related portion of your mobile phone and home internet bill is claimable. You’ll need to calculate the work-use percentage based on actual usage records.

The golden rule across all of these: the expense must have a genuine and direct connection to earning your income, you must have paid for it yourself without being reimbursed, and you need to have the paperwork to support the claim.

7. Small Business Owners: Use the Instant Asset Write-Off

If you run a small business with an annual turnover of less than $10 million, you may be eligible for the $20,000 Instant Asset Write-Off for the 2025–26 financial year.

This means that for any eligible asset costing less than $20,000 (excluding GST) that you purchase and have installed and ready for use by 30 June 2026, you can immediately deduct the full cost in this year’s tax return, rather than depreciating it over several years.

The types of assets this might cover include computers and technology equipment, tools and machinery, vehicles used for business, office furniture, and point-of-sale systems.

For business owners who have been putting off equipment purchases, this is a strong incentive to act before year end. Just make sure the asset is genuinely needed for your business. Buying something purely “for the tax deduction” rarely makes financial sense when you do the maths. Explore our Business Advisory services if you’d like help thinking through the numbers.

Keep Records of Everything

One of the most important EOFY tax tips: Whatever deductions you plan to claim, the single most important thing you can do is keep your receipts, logs, and records. The ATO’s data-matching capabilities have grown significantly. They have access to information from banks, employers, government agencies, and digital platforms. The days of rough estimates flying under the radar are well and truly over.

The ATO also warns against the growing trend of “tax hacks” circulating on social media. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably doesn’t comply with ATO rules, and the penalties for claiming deductions you’re not entitled to can be significant.

What’s the Tax Deadline?

If you’re lodging your own return, the standard deadline is 31 October 2026. However, if you use a registered tax agent, your deadline may be extended – sometimes as far as May 2027. That’s another good reason to engage a professional sooner rather than later.

If you’re expecting a refund, lodging early means the money hits your account sooner. So once you have your records sorted, there’s no reason to wait.

Ready to Make the Most of EOFY?

Tax planning doesn’t need to be stressful, but it does need to happen before 30 June. Whether you’re an employee, a small business owner, a property investor, or somewhere in between, there are strategies available to reduce your tax bill, maximise tax refunds and build a stronger financial future.

The team at HPartners specialises in Tax Planning and Forecasting and works with Australians at every stage of life to ensure they’re making the most of every opportunity the tax system allows – legally, strategically, and with their bigger financial goals in mind.

Book a conversation with one of our advisers today because the best time to act on EOFY is right now, before 30 June comes and goes.

Any advice is general in nature only and has been prepared without considering your needs, objectives or financial situation. Before acting on it, you should consider its appropriateness for you, having regard to those factors. Before making any decision about whether to acquire a financial product, you should obtain the Product Disclosure Statement.