Why "tax time" is really "the last day of June"
The Australian tax year ends 30 June. Anything you want to affect this year's refund — a salary sacrifice into super, a receipt you want deductible, a charity donation, a professional membership renewal — needs to be done and dated by 30 June. Reconstructing hours or "backdating" a donation in July doesn't count. The ATO explicitly requires a contemporaneous record for work-from-home hours, meaning "kept as you go" — not "worked out from memory in July."
This guide walks you through the 10-minute prep families should do at least twice a year (say May and June) and once at lodgement in July-October.
The 10 minutes
Minutes 1-2: Anchor your income
Snap your most-recent pay slip and NestWise reads:
- Gross year-to-date pay → your projected annual gross
- PAYG tax withheld year-to-date → your projected annual PAYG
- Employer Super Guarantee year-to-date → concessional cap position
- Any salary sacrifice → concessional cap position
Without these two numbers (gross + PAYG), the refund estimate can't work. Everything else builds on top.
Minutes 3-4: Confirm your Medicare + HELP status
Two flags that materially change the estimate:
- Private hospital cover — even basic hospital cover exempts you from Medicare Levy Surcharge. If you're above $105k single / $210k family AND don't have cover, MLS is 1-1.5% of your taxable income. That's $1,050-$2,265 at $105k, and often more than a basic policy costs.
- HELP balance — if you have a study loan, flag it. Compulsory repayment tiers start at $54,435 (1%) and top out at 10% above ~$160k. Your employer usually withholds for HELP through the year, but if they weren't (e.g. you had multiple jobs), your refund estimate looks great until you actually lodge.
Both are one-tap toggles in NestWise.
Minutes 5-7: Capture the deductions you don't have yet
NestWise shows a "typical for your income band" figure (from ATO taxation statistics). If you're materially below it, you're likely leaving deductions on the table. Common misses:
- WFH hours — the ATO fixed rate is $0.70/hr. Log weekly; a running total at year-end is fine, but reconstructing from memory in June isn't.
- Home internet + phone — deductible at the work-use fraction (%). If 20% of your internet is work, 20% of the annual bill is deductible.
- Professional memberships and union fees — annual fees for professional bodies (engineers, lawyers, healthcare workers, etc) are deductible in full. Union fees too.
- Work equipment — a keyboard, monitor, desk chair, laptop bag. Under $300 = immediate deduction. Over $300 = depreciated over multiple years.
- Software subscriptions used for work — Adobe, Notion, Figma, Github, Zoom. Flag them as tax-deductible when you add them to Bills.
- Income protection insurance premiums — deductible in full (unlike life insurance inside super which isn't).
- Self-education for maintaining your current role — course fees, textbooks, travel to the course. Must be for your CURRENT role, not a new career.
- Donations — $2+ gifts to a registered Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR). Verify the charity is a DGR via the ATO's ABN lookup.
- Sun protection for outdoor workers — sunscreen, sunglasses, sun-protective clothing (yes, seriously — if you work outdoors as a tradie, teacher on playground duty, or similar).
Minutes 8-9: Super concessional cap
The concessional cap is $32,500 for FY 2026-27 (up from $30,000 in FY 2025-26 via AWOTE indexation). Everything that flows into your super concessionally counts:
- Employer Super Guarantee (12% of ordinary earnings) — automatic
- Salary sacrifice — arranged with your employer
- Personal deductible contributions — you can put money in yourself and claim it as a deduction if you notify your fund with a "notice of intent to claim" form
If you have headroom and want to bump super sacrifice, that has to be arranged with your employer BEFORE your last pay day of the FY. The NestWise super page has a slider — drag salary-sacrifice % and see the projected end-of-FY total instantly.
You may also have carry-forward concessional cap from FYs where you didn't max out. Available only if your total super balance on 30 June of the previous FY was under $500,000. NestWise flags this when relevant.
Minute 10: Share the summary + lodge
The NestWise tax-time page has a Share button that mints a read-only URL you can send your accountant. It captures:
- Refund/payable estimate + breakdown
- Every deductible bill, WFH hour, receipt, and super contribution
- Your income band + which offsets and surcharges apply
- Downloadable CSV (paste directly into ATO myDeductions or hand to the agent)
You can revoke the share link any time.
The rates NestWise uses (FY 2026-27)
- Personal income tax brackets: 0-$18,200 = 0%, $18,201-$45,000 = 15% (Stage 3+ Phase 2 dropped this from 16% to 15% from 1 July 2026), $45,001-$135,000 = 30%, $135,001-$190,000 = 37%, $190,001+ = 45%.
- Medicare Levy: 2% flat.
- Medicare Levy Surcharge: 1% ($105k-$123k single / $210k-$246k family), 1.25% (up to $164k single / $328k family), 1.5% above — only when you don't have eligible private hospital cover.
- HELP repayment: 1% at $54,435 through 10% at $159,663+.
- LITO: $700 max, phases out from $37,500 to $66,667.
- Concessional super cap: $32,500 (up from $30k after AWOTE indexation).
- Non-concessional super cap: $130,000 (4× the concessional cap).
- Div 293 threshold: $250,000 (extra 15% super tax when combined income + concessional contributions exceed this).
All numbers above are sourced from lib/rates.ts in the NestWise codebase and match ato.gov.au + servicesaustralia.gov.au as of 1 July 2026.
What this guide doesn't cover
- Sole trader / small business deductions — different rules, use the ATO's business.gov.au or a business accountant.
- Investment property deductions — depreciation, negative gearing, capital gains. NestWise's tax-time page doesn't currently model these.
- Cryptocurrency capital gains — outside NestWise's scope.
- Foreign income — see the ATO's foreign income and foreign tax offset pages.
- Trust distributions — see an accountant.
And finally
Tax isn't a test of virtue; it's a calibration exercise. The point of this page — and the tax-time surface in NestWise — is to make it stupid-simple for a busy family to know where they stand a few times a year, and where the levers are before the deadline. Not financial advice. Rates change. Personal circumstances vary. When in doubt, ask a registered tax agent.