Other Expenses

(a) Mobile Telephone Expenses

Barry owns his own mobile telephone. His mobile telephone call costs for the 2020 income year totalled $1,440.

According to an analysis of Barry's mobile telephone statements over a three-month period, Barry reliably estimates that 70% of these calls were work-related. Assume that Barry did not take any annual leave during the 2020 income year and, hence, he worked for the full 12 months of the year.

Furthermore, Barry was not reimbursed for any of these costs by his employer.

(b) Breakfast Meetings with Politicians and their Advisors

Barry often wakes up between 5:00 am and 6:00 am each morning. He makes a habit of catching up with Queensland politicians, Ministers, their advisors and senior bureaucrats for breakfast once a week or so at several Brisbane 5-star hotels, including the Brisbane Marriott, the Stamford Plaza, The Hilton Hotel and The Sheraton between 7:00 am and 8:00 am for one hour. This gives him the chance to meet them in a casual environment and to ask them "informal" questions, and get the "scoop" on breaking political news and gossip.

Barry pays for the breakfast himself (he is not reimbursed by his employer). During the 2020 income year, Barry spent a total of $1,556 on food and beverages for himself and guests. Barry reliably estimates that approximately half of this amount was spent on himself, and the other half on guests.

(c) Home Office Expenses

Although he spends most of his day working from the office of The Brisbane Telegraph, Barry occasionally works from home. Barry has a small room in his house at Clayfield which he uses for the purposes of catching up on work, writing and editing stories and checking e-mails.

When you ask Barry to provide you with his electricity invoices so that a proportionate claim can be made for home office expenses, he advises that he has not kept any of these invoices.

However, Barry provides you with a diary that he has kept for four weeks during the 2020 income year, detailing the total number of hours he has worked at home. From this diary, Barry has been able to estimate that he has worked a total of 1,300 hours from his home during the 2020 income year (including periods of COVID-19 lockdowns where Barry was required by his employer to work from home).

Barry elects not to use the 80 cents per hour "shortcut method" for claiming home office expenses.

(d) Home Internet Access Fees

Barry pays $150 per month to an internet service provider to connect to the internet at his home in Clayfield. This provides him with a total allowance of 1,000GB worth of data uploads and downloads per month.

Based on a three-month diary that Barry has maintained, Barry estimates that he uses an average of 80% of this data allowance accessing the firms intranet, downloading client files, and checking his work e-mails.

The remaining 20% of internet usage is attributed to his two children who use the internet to play video games, watch video clips, research for school homework and assignments and send e-mails and messages to their friends.

During the 2020 income year, Barry paid $1,800 to the ISP provider representing 12 monthly payments of $150 each.

Assume that Barry did not take any annual leave during the 2020 income year and, hence, he worked for the full 12 months of the year.

(e) Hand Sanitisers and Face Masks Purchased due to COVID-19

Barry also advises you that as he was required to work from home, he bought several bottles of hand sanitiser and face masks from his local pharmacy.

This was done as all health advice from chief health officers was to ensure that you wash regularly hands and to wear face masks. Barry has kept receipts for these items, which he presents you with. The total amount spent on these items came to $158.

(f) Subscriptions and Memberships

Barry paid the following subscriptions and professional memberships during the 2020 income year:

$

• Australian Journalist Association (AJA) annual renewal 1,164
• 12-month subscription to National Geographic 96
• Newspapers purchased exclusively for research purposes 414
• Qantas Airport Lounge 12-month annual membership renewal fee 550

Barry has been a member of The Qantas Club since 2008.

On 1 January 2020, Barry renewed his annual Qantas airport lounge membership because he travels extensively in the course of his job as a political journalist and finds it convenient to use the Qantas airport lounge (particularly the business facilities) each time before boarding his flight.

Note: For the purposes of the tax return, if students consider that any of the items listed in the four bullet points above in part (e) on the previous page are tax-deductible, please include the relevant amounts at Label D5 of the tax return (ie. 'other work-related expenses'). In other words, do not include these items at any other label of Barry's tax return.