Tax Vault
Organise your tax receipts, statements, and records by Australian financial year. Save PDFs and images locally on your device, access them offline, and export a Tax Pack when you are ready to lodge.
Private by default. Files stay on your device.
- Save receipts, PDFs, and statements.
- Organise by Australian financial year.
- Categorise documents for tax time.
- Access documents offline.
- Export a Tax Pack ZIP grouped by category.
- Private by default — no upload to Austax servers.
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What to file in each category
The ten categories below are the ones the vault sorts by, and they become the folders in an exported Tax Pack. What belongs in each is what the ATO expects to see if it reviews that part of your return.
- Income
- Income statements, PAYG payment summaries, and a signed letter or statement from a payer who does not report through Single Touch Payroll.
- Work-related expenses Work-related deductions calculator
- Supplier receipts and invoices, plus the note or diary that shows how the expense relates to earning your income and how you split work from private use.
- Donations
- Receipts from deductible gift recipients. A bank transfer record alone is not a receipt.
- Private health insurance
- Your annual private health insurance statement, which carries the rebate tier and the days covered used on your return.
- Investments / CGT CGT calculator
- Contract notes, dividend and distribution statements, AMMA statements, and every cost-base document from the day you acquire the asset — those are the records with the longest retention period.
- Rental property Rental property deduction wizard
- Rental statements from the agent, loan interest summaries, repair and improvement invoices, and the depreciation schedule for the property.
- Superannuation Personal super contribution deduction calculator
- Notice of intent to claim a deduction and the fund's acknowledgement, contribution confirmations, and member statements.
- Self-education
- Course fee invoices, textbook and equipment receipts, and the record connecting the course to your current employment.
- Vehicle / travel Car expense calculator
- Logbook, odometer readings, fuel and servicing receipts, and travel diaries. Car expenses sit outside the $300 rule, so they always need records.
- Other
- Anything that does not fit a category above — for example, income protection premiums, the cost of managing your tax affairs, or interest charged by the ATO.
How long to keep each record
The base rule is 5 years of written evidence from the date you lodge the return the record supports. That is why the vault files by financial year rather than by calendar date: the clock starts at lodgment, so a receipt from July 2026 and one from June 2027 belong to the same retention window. Three situations run longer or later:
- You claim a deduction for the decline in value of a depreciating asset Keep for 5 years from the date of your last claim for decline in value.
- You acquire or dispose of a CGT asset Keep for 5 years after it is certain that no CGT event can happen.
- You are in dispute with the ATO Keep for the later of 5 years from lodgment and 5 years from the date the dispute is resolved.
The CGT case is the one that catches people out. Cost-base documents — the contract, the stamp duty assessment, conveyancing invoices, receipts for capital improvements — matter at the point of sale, which may be decades after you filed them. File them under Investments / CGT in the year you acquire the asset and leave them there.
What counts as written evidence
Written evidence comes from the supplier — a receipt or an invoice — and shows:
- the name of the supplier
- the amount of the expense
- the nature of the goods or services
- the date the expense was paid
- the date of the document
A bank or credit card statement on its own is not written evidence: it is not from the supplier and generally does not show what was bought. Alongside the receipt you also need a record of how the expense relates to earning your income, and how you worked out the work-related portion of anything you also use privately.
If your total work-related claim — laundry included, but car, travel and overtime meal allowance expenses excluded — comes to $300 or less, you can claim it without receipts, as long as you can show how you calculated it. Laundry has a separate limit: up to $150 of washing, drying and ironing needs no written evidence even when the total claim is above $300. Neither limit is an automatic deduction — you still have to have spent the money.
Records can be paper or electronic, and a photo of a receipt counts as long as the copy is true and clear. Records for expenses incurred in Australia must be in English; a document for an overseas expense may be in that country's language, and the ATO can ask for a certified translation.