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The ATO website is one of the least user-friendly, hardest-to-search websites in existence, but I'd say this page is getting close to what I'm talking about.

It can cover whatever you negotiate. If it's your PPOR, as you've suggested, they're helping cover the expense of the right to occupy the property, whether that's via rent or mortgage interest. It need not include anything else, ie it could be $120 is their contribution to household expenses in...

Let me be even clearer, then: cash in hand contributions with no declaration of income or expenses, or the fact that you have a lodger, is exactly how the ATO would want you to deal with this situation. :)

Ummm... I thought I just explained that they don't want to tax lodger's rental contributions. :confused:

Exactly. But not in the "nudge nudge, wink wink" sense - it's perfectly legitimate to accept contributions to household expenses and not declare them, provided 1) you're not doing it primarily for profit (eg if this was your primary source of income), and 2) you don't claim the expenses they're...

You'd probably end up making a profit and have to pay income tax and/or CGT and in any case, it complicates your tax returns. Personally, I'd treat their payments to you as "contributions to the running of the household" rather than rent, and don't declare either income or expenses. This is...