Top 10 Ways to Get a Bigger Tax Refund in Australia (2025)

Wondering how to get more tax refund this year? It’s the question on every Aussie’s mind come tax time. The answer isn’t about finding secret loopholes; it’s about understanding what you’re entitled to and claiming it correctly.

A tax refund isn’t a gift from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). It’s your own hard-earned money being returned to you because you’ve paid more tax throughout the year than you needed to. For many Australians, maximising this refund is a critical part of the annual budget, helping to cover bills, pay down debt, or simply get ahead.

So, why do so many people miss out on a bigger return? It usually boils down to a few common reasons: a lack of receipts and records, being unsure what to claim, or going it alone without a tax agent. These simple slip-ups can cost you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

This guide will walk you through 10 expert-backed strategies to help you confidently claim every dollar you deserve and boost your 2025 tax return.

1. Claim All Work-Related Expenses

One of the biggest areas people leave money on the table is with everyday work-related expenses. These are the costs you incur simply to do your job, and they represent a huge opportunity to increase your ATO tax refund.

This includes things like:

• Uniforms and protective clothing: If you wear a compulsory uniform with your employer’s logo, you can claim its cost and laundering expenses.
• Tools and equipment: Items under $300 can be claimed immediately. More expensive assets like laptops are depreciated over time.
• Subscriptions and memberships: Fees for professional journals or union memberships are deductible.

With many of us working from home, it’s crucial to claim these costs correctly. The ATO provides two options:

• The 70 cents per hour method: This is a simple, fixed-rate claim that covers your energy, internet, phone, and stationery costs. You just need a log of the hours you worked from home.
• The actual cost method: This requires more detailed records but often results in a larger deduction. You calculate the specific work-related percentage of all your home office running expenses.

Tip: Always keep a diary or log of your work-from-home hours and hold onto every receipt for work-related purchases. A simple digital folder or app makes this easy. Good records are the key to a maximum refund.

2. Use the Logbook for Car Expenses

If you use your personal car for work, you have another choice to make: the cents per kilometre method or the logbook method. While the cents per km method is simple (claiming a set rate per kilometre, capped at 5,000 km), the logbook method is where the real savings are for regular drivers.

The logbook method allows you to claim the business-use percentage of all your actual car running costs, including fuel, insurance, registration, servicing, and even depreciation.

To use this method, you need to keep a detailed logbook for a continuous 12-week period. This establishes your business-use percentage, which you can then apply for up to five years, provided your driving habits don’t change.

Let’s see a real-life savings example. A sales rep drives 10,000 km for work.

• Cents per km: At 88c/km, their claim is capped at 5,000 km, giving them a $4,400 deduction.
• Logbook method: Their logbook shows 75% business use of their car. Their total running costs for the year were $9,000. Their claim is 75% of $9,000, which equals $6,750.

By using a logbook, they increased their deduction by $2,350, leading to a significantly bigger refund. It’s a perfect example of how a bit of record-keeping can seriously boost your tax return.

3. Internet & Phone Bills

Claiming your internet and phone bills is a must if you work from home or use your personal devices for your job. However, you can only claim the work-related portion. You can’t just claim the whole bill.

To work out your claim, you need to establish a pattern of work use. The best way to do this is by keeping a detailed log or diary for a representative four-week period. In this log, you track every time you use your phone or internet for work versus personal tasks.

This four-week snapshot allows you to calculate your work-use percentage, which you can then apply to your phone and internet bills for the entire year.

Tip: Don’t overclaim or “guesstimate” your usage. The ATO has sophisticated data-matching capabilities and may ask you to prove your claim. A four-week usage log provides the evidence you need to claim confidently and correctly.

4. Make Personal Super Contributions

One of the most powerful tax refund hacks Australia offers is making personal, concessional contributions to your superannuation. It’s a double win: you build your retirement savings while getting a tax deduction for the amount you contribute.

For the 2024–25 financial year, the concessional contributions cap is $30,000. This cap includes all contributions made by your employer (Superannuation Guarantee), any salary sacrifice amounts, and the personal contributions you make and claim as a deduction.

A fantastic rule that many people miss is the ‘carry-forward’ provision. If your total super balance was under $500,000 at the end of the previous financial year, you can use any unused portion of your concessional caps from the last five years. This allows you to make a large, tax-deductible contribution in a year when you have extra cash available.

5. Self-Education & Upskilling

Investing in your professional development can also lead to a bigger tax refund. If you paid for a course, degree, or training program to upgrade your skills or increase your income in your current job, you can claim the expenses.

Deductible self-education expenses include:

• Course and tuition fees
• Textbooks, stationery, and professional journals
• Travel expenses to and from your place of study
• A portion of home office running costs if studying from home

Tip: The critical rule is that the study must be directly related to your current employment. You can’t claim for a course that is designed to help you change careers or get a new job in a different field.

6. Donate to Registered Charities (DGRs)

Giving back to a cause you care about feels good, and it can also give your tax return a lift. You can claim a tax deduction for any donation of $2 or more made to a charity that is registered as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR).

There are two main eligibility rules:

1. The donation must be a true gift, meaning you received no material benefit in return (e.g., raffle tickets or event entry don’t count).
2. The organisation must have DGR status with the ATO.

Before you claim, you can quickly verify a charity’s status using the government’s ABN Lookup tool. Always keep the receipt as proof of your donation. This is one of the simplest deductions to claim to boost your tax refund.

7. Prepay Expenses

This is a clever strategy that allows you to bring forward deductions from the next financial year into the current one. If you have predictable expenses for the coming year, you can prepay them before 30 June and claim the deduction now. This is one of the tax agent tips that can make a big difference.

This works well for expenses such as:

• Professional subscriptions and association memberships for the upcoming year.
• Work-related insurance premiums.
• The cost of business conferences or training courses you have booked and paid for in advance.
• For sole traders, prepaying expenses like rent or advertising.

By prepaying, you reduce your taxable income for this year, which directly helps to increase your ATO tax refund.

8. Use a Registered Tax Agent

Navigating Australia’s complex tax laws can be overwhelming. Using a registered tax agent is an investment in getting your maximum refund. Their job is to know every legitimate deduction, offset, and credit you are entitled to, ensuring you don’t leave any money on the table.

An expert can identify deductions you may not have known about, minimise errors that could trigger an ATO audit, and give you peace of mind. A great tax agent asks the right questions to uncover every possible claim.

Plus, the fee you pay for a registered tax agent is tax-deductible in your next return, meaning the service helps pay for itself. You can explore these tax tips on YouTube to hear more from experts.

When you use a professional from a firm like Nanak Accountants & Associates, you get expert guidance to ensure fewer errors and maximise your deductions.

9. Lodge After Prefill Data Is Ready

It can be tempting to lodge your tax return on 1 July, but patience pays off. Your employer, banks, government agencies, and health funds have until the end of July to report your information to the ATO. This data is used to pre-fill your tax return.

If you lodge too early, you risk using incomplete or incorrect information. This can lead to delays, ATO reviews, or having to file an amendment later on.

The best strategy is to wait until at least mid-July, when most of your information will be finalised and marked as “tax-ready” in your myGov account. This ensures your return is accurate from the start, leading to a smoother process and a faster refund. To find out more about key tax dates and processing times, it’s always good to be informed.

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Feeling like you’re navigating a maze of tax rules? The team at Nanak Accountants and Associates brings over 10 years of hands-on experience to the table, helping everyday Australians and businesses get the maximum refund they’re entitled to. We’ll handle the complexities so you can be confident you’re claiming every last dollar. Book your consultation with Nanak Accountants and Associates today!