Yes, you can. Because the marketing budget for any business is part of necessary operating expenses, in many cases it can be claimed as a tax deduction to reduce your taxable income.
Whether your business has invested in something as simple as a new set of business cards, branded t-shirts or a brand-new SEO optimised website, those costs can certainly be claimed as business expenses.
Marketing expenses and advertising costs can include:
- Social media costs (such as social media paid campaigns)
- Paying for a marketing consultant or agency (like us)
- Investing in organic search strategies – SEO – and paid search campaigns – SEM
- Newspaper, television, magazine, and radio ads (both creation and placement)
- Digital display advertising
- Website domain registration and maintenance fees
- Directory listing fees
Any operating expenses you plan to claim on must be carefully recorded and filed away.
Include the following in your records:
- What the expense was for
- How much it cost (as well as GST)
- When the purchase was made
- Any receipts or invoices connected to the expense
- Bank or credit card statements to show payment
- You will need to hold these records for five years, and it’s best to back up your records in a secure location, such as on the cloud or a hard drive held off-site.
If you’re a sole trader managing your own tax return, you can lodge your tax with the ATO’s myTax online portal, which is the same route for individual tax lodging. Your tax return will include a section where you can input the cost of work-related expenses such as marketing costs.
If you have an accountant managing your tax return, you should simply be able to hand over these documents and let them do the rest (and don’t forget that you can also claim their fees as the cost of managing tax affairs).
Remember, the very reason marketing expenses are eligible for tax deductions is because these costs are associated with growing your business.
How about getting some expert digital marketing help from our team? Don’t forget it’s a tax-deductible cost and it will help you grow your business.