Keeping track of multi year deductions

[oh_noes]

I have a single excel spreadsheet with all my deductions (and tax calcuations) listed on it. I then print it out, and have all my receipts in a folder labeled TAX 06-07 etc.

However, I'm come to the minor problem of keeping track of multi-year deduction. How can I correctly correlate and link deductions which span across multiple years?

For example, being in IT I'm allowed to deduct a percentage of my Personal PC that I use for home use (depreciation over 3 years).

This isn't specific to IP's (but I'm sure I'll also run into the same problem with this (this is my first year owning an IP)).

Thanks

 

[Lotana]

A depreciation schedule will help you to track this kind of expenses.
I also use excel for this. For each year each item has Opening value, amount of depreciation, and closing value. The closing value becomes the Opening Value for the following year. This is of course a simplified explanation, but it should give you an idea. The details can be found at ato web site.

 

[oh_noes]

Thanks, that does make a lot of sense. So each year you just carry over the previous years deductions that aren't $0?

What about items that I'm allowed to deduct completely in a single tax year? Do they have a normal Opening Value (ie. cost), but closing value of $0?

Is your deprecation a percentage?

 

[oh_noes]

Quick bump ^

Thanks

 

[MattR]

Some accountants use the depreciation schedule as another way of tracking costs that can go over a number of years.

Eg. borrowing costs go over 5 years, so set it up at a prime cost/(straight line) depreciable item. Obviously it needs to go elsewhere in the return but the remembering and the maths are all done....

 

[Pete]

Hi,

I have a single spreadsheet too. One worksheet is like a ledger. One field is tax year. (Then things like owner, property address (just as an identifier), tax category, date, value, supplier, some description fields.)

When a tax depreciation schedule is done, I have another sheet with a few formulae to spread the costs into future years. Using normal depreciation calculations. Item by item. So for a house built in 2003 there would be building depreciation items out to tax year 2043 or so. And items like curtains or whatever depreciated over so many years too. This worksheet is rarely changed. It is only populated when a depreciation calculation is required. Then the results are copied to the ledger and just sit there ready to be used in the coming decades.

Similarly with the borrowing costs spread over five years. A few formulae spread that over the years based on the number of days in each tax year. Just a few simple formulae and easy to have it right to the cent! From that also rarely used calculation sheet the results go to the ledger too.

From each monthly rental statement, the salient information is loaded to the ledger.

All loan interest amounts are entered. All income & expenditure.

It is well set up and very simple for me to use. There is some VBA code in the background to do some smarter things. Like a double click on a cell filters that field on the active cell value, or removes the filter if one is already on. Every time the sheet is activated (so when coming from another sheet) the sheet resorts all the fields and positions the activecell in the middle of the screen at the next current record - you might appreciate their are thousands of records and this automation is very handy. De-activating this sheet automatically updates a pivot table on another worksheet that summarises all the costs by the tax office categories, listed in the same order as the ATO forms. There are a few other features too.

With the smart set up, details from a monthly rental statement are loaded into the worksheet in about a minute or so. Filter for that property & property manager, copy last month's records, edit the date, change a couple of values & descriptions. Unfilter and filter then for the next one.

I load up anticipated costs too. Say if I know the insurance is due in mid-June I might load that value into the ledger some time in advance. And colour the cell yellow to show that it is not final.

And also on another sheet these ledger costs are forecast by a few formulas so that at any time in the tax year I have a good forecast of my end of year tax position.

I guess that gives a flavour of the set up.

Works a treat and the results are spot on. Accountant says he has never seen anything like it by other clients.

I work with Excel all the time and program in VBA for Excel daily.

Cheers,