Claiming your website expenses

If you have a business website, or are planning to set one up, you can claim a number of your website costs back as a tax deduction.

What costs can I claim?

Some of the costs you may be eligible to claim for include:

1. buying server hardware

2. buying or developing software

3. website hosting fees.

You can even claim running costs, such as website hosting fees, straight away.

When can I claim?

When you can claim your set-up costs can change depending on when you start (or started) trading.

If you’ve already started trade, any set-up costs you’ve made prior to starting are deductible over five years.

A number of set-up costs after the start of trade are also deductible:

1. Amounts under $1,000 are deductible straight away.

2. Amounts over $1,000 are deductible over four years.

Let's look at three examples

1. You’re getting ready to start a business and you spend $2,000 for a website design. The $2,000 you spent before your business started can still be claimed against your business income over five years.

2. You’re in business and choose a business website hosting package that costs you $4,000 to set up. You also have to pay $350 a month, plus $50 a year for the domain name. The $4,000 can be claimed over four years or in a general small business pool. The monthly and yearly fees can be claimed as a deduction in the year you incur the expense.

3. You run a small business and have decided to promote your services online. You buy an $800 static website and pay $100 a month for hosting. The $800 can be claimed as an outright deduction, and you can also claim the monthly hosting fees as a deduction against your business income.