What can salon and hairdressing business owners actually claim at tax time?

If you own a salon, you're probably so busy running the floor, managing your team and keeping clients happy that tax is the last thing you want to think about. Fair enough. But most salon owners are quietly leaving money on the table simply because no one's ever sat down and explained what they can claim. So here's how it actually works.

Working from home

You do more from home than you think. Managing your online bookings, sorting the roster, doing your marketing, chasing stock. If you're spending a few hours a day on the business from home, you can claim a portion of your running costs like gas and electricity. You don't need to own the place, and if you're renting, you just claim the running costs, not rent or rates. The government gives you a couple of methods to work it out, and a good accountant picks whichever one gives you the better deduction, as long as you've kept the right records. The trick is keeping a rough note of your hours, so at year end there's something to base it on.

Your car

This one trips a lot of salon owners up. If you use your car for work, stock runs, trips between locations, that sort of thing, you can claim it. There are two ways. The simple one lets you claim up to 5,000 work kilometres a year without keeping receipts, as long as you can explain how you got to that number. If you want to claim more than that, or a bigger chunk of the actual car, you need a logbook, which you keep for 12 weeks noting whether each trip is work or personal. One warning: if your accountant has been claiming 100% of your car with no logbook, that's a risk worth fixing, because if the ATO ever asks, you'll want the records to back it up.

Your equipment and fit-out

People assume equipment means big beauty machines, but your fit-out counts too, and it adds up fast. Chairs, basins, a heat machine, the whole set-up. Depending on the cost and the year, some of these can be written off faster than you'd expect. If you've financed any of it, that matters for how we treat it, so it's worth flagging.

The stuff people forget

Your receipts for the little things add up. Products, tools, uniforms, training, the laptop you're always on. Keep them. If you provide your team with cars or phones, that can trigger something called Fringe Benefits Tax, which is worth knowing about before it becomes a surprise.

The real point

Deductions matter, but the bigger win for most salon owners isn't squeezing an extra claim. It's having someone who actually looks at your numbers through the year and plans ahead, so you're never caught out at tax time and you know exactly where you stand. That's the difference between an accountant who just lodges your return and one who's actually in your corner.

If you're not sure you're claiming everything you should, it's worth a chat. We work with salon owners across Australia and we speak your language, not accountant.n easy-to-understand guide to tax deductions for salon owners and hairdressers, from working-from-home to your car, stock and fit-out. From a CPA firm that works with salons across Australia.