EOFY Checklist for Australian Rental Property Owners

Disclaimer: This is general guidance for self-managing Australian landlords, not tax advice. Talk to your accountant about your specific situation. The current ATO rental property guide is the authoritative reference.

What the ATO actually wants

Australian rental property owners report income and deductions as part of their personal tax return (or a trust / company / SMSF return, depending on structure). The ATO’s schedule is straightforward at a high level:

• Rental income: Total rent received in the financial year, plus any rental-related income (bond retained for damage, letting fees recovered).
• Rental expenses: Categorised deductions including interest, council rates, water, repairs, depreciation, agent fees, advertising, and many more.
• Capital improvements: Tracked separately because they affect cost base, not annual deductions.
• Supporting records: The ATO requires you to keep receipts and supporting documentation for 5 years.

The checklist below maps to each of those buckets.

1. Total rent income

Total rent received during the financial year, by property. This is where a rent ledger earns its keep — if your ledger is up to date, this is a one-line export. If you’re working from bank statements, you’re going to spend an afternoon adding up deposits and trying to remember which deposit was rent vs which was a bond return.

Edge cases to handle:

• Rent in advance: Rent paid before 30 June for periods after 30 June is still assessable income in the year received. Don’t exclude it.
• Rent in arrears: Rent owed but not received by 30 June is generally not income until received (assuming you’re on cash basis, which most individual landlords are).
• Bond retained for damages: Counts as rental income in the year retained.

2. Deductible expenses (the big list)

These are the categories the ATO recognises for rental property. Have a total for each, by property, with supporting receipts:

• Interest on investment loan: From your lender’s annual statement. Make sure you’re only claiming the rental portion if the loan is split-purpose.
• Council rates: Quarterly bills, summed for the year.
• Water rates: Usage you paid (not what the tenant paid).
• Land tax: State-specific, paid annually.
• Strata / body corporate fees: Quarterly or annual, depending on the scheme.
• Building insurance: Annual premium for the rental property.
• Landlord insurance: Separate from building.
• Property management fees: If you have an agent, including letting fees and renewal fees.
• Advertising for tenants: Real estate listing fees, photography, signage.
• Repairs and maintenance: True repairs (replacing a broken tap) are immediately deductible. Improvements (renovating a kitchen) are capital, not repairs.
• Cleaning, gardening, pest control: Self-explanatory.
• Travel: Generally not deductible for residential rental (legislation changed years ago), but check your specific scenario.
• Borrowing costs: Loan establishment fees, mortgage broker fees, etc., amortised over the loan period.
• Depreciation: Big topic — see below.
• Quantity surveyor report: Deductible in the year the report is paid for.
• Tax agent fees: For the rental portion of your return.

3. Depreciation

Depreciation is two separate things in the ATO’s rules:

Division 40: Plant and equipment

Removable assets — air conditioners, ovens, hot water systems, carpets, blinds. Depreciated over their effective life. Note that since 2017, this is generally only claimable on assets you purchased new (or were new when you bought the property as new). Second-hand assets in an established rental are largely not claimable for individual investors.

Division 43: Capital works

The structural building itself. Depreciated at 2.5% per year over 40 years if the original construction was post-1987. This is usually the bigger of the two figures and it’s where a quantity surveyor’s report pays for itself.

If you don’t already have a depreciation schedule, getting one done by a quantity surveyor is usually worth it on any property built after the mid-1980s. The schedule itself is deductible.

4. Capital improvements (tracked, not deducted)

Improvements aren’t deductible in the year you spend them — they add to the cost base of the property and reduce CGT when you eventually sell. Track them carefully because the records need to survive until disposal:

• Renovations (kitchen, bathroom, extensions).
• New air conditioning, new hot water, new appliances (these also depreciate, but the purchase is also a capital event).
• Structural repairs that go beyond restoration (replacing a roof entirely vs patching it).

5. Documentation you need to keep

The ATO requires you to keep records for at least 5 years. Practically, keep them for the lifetime of the property because CGT calculations on sale reference the original purchase records.

• Contract of sale and purchase costs (legal fees, stamp duty, building inspection).
• Loan statements showing interest paid.
• All bills, receipts, and invoices for expenses claimed.
• Bank statements showing rent received.
• Lease agreements and any amendments.
• Depreciation schedule.
• Records of any capital improvements with dates and amounts.

In PropLedger, every expense you record can have the receipt attached directly to the entry. When EOFY arrives, the receipts are already attached to the deductions — no shoebox archaeology required.

6. The pre-1-July run-through

About a week before 30 June, do this final check:

1. Reconcile every rent payment for the financial year. Any open charges? Any unmatched deposits?
2. Process every outstanding bill. Bills dated before 30 June need to be in this year’s deductions.
3. Check that your depreciation schedule is current. If you renovated this year, get the schedule updated.
4. Note any capital improvements separately — they don’t go in the deductions but they need to be tracked.
5. Export the full picture: rent income by property, expenses by category by property, depreciation, capital improvements.

With a clean monthly rhythm, this run-through takes 30 minutes. Hand the export to your accountant on 1 July and the return is usually finalised within a couple of weeks. That’s the difference between paying for advice and paying for transcription.