What marketing expenses can I claim at tax time?
Running a small to medium-sized business means constantly seeking ways to minimise expenses while increasing profit.
One of the most dependable methods of reducing costs is by claiming everything possible when tax time rolls around.
Claiming a deduction for costs incurred when running your business has the potential to save you thousands, including expenditures on marketing. This means you can invest in marketing your brand, expanding your reach, and growing your business, all while reducing your tax bill.
What marketing expenses can I claim?
It makes sense to seek financial tax advice and claim your marketing spend deductions. As marketing is considered a common requirement when operating a business, most of the costs can typically be claimed as a tax deduction. Just remember to follow the ATO guidelines whenever you are claiming any work-related expenses.
You can only claim expenses if:
- They were directly related to earning income.
- You kept legible records to substantiate the claim.
- They were for business, not private.
So as long as the marketing costs meet these criteria, you should be able to claim all of the expenses like advertising, website creation, digital marketing and marketing software that you are using for your business.
Advertising
If you had a pretty sizable ad spend this year, you’ll be happy to know that expenses for advertising your business are tax-deductible. It doesn’t matter if you’re running ads online, in the local paper, on TV, or even on the side of a shed. Or if you paid for in-store signage, product placement in a movie, or those little ads on shopping carts.
From hiring a copywriter and designer to the costs of printing materials, and even paying for someone to hand out all your snazzy new flyers. All expenses for producing and placing the ad are tax-deductible, as long as they’re for gaining some publicity, increasing your reach, and selling your product.
Website creation
Investing in a website for your business is crucial for any successful marketing campaign. Almost everyone is searching online for products, researching them, and reading reviews, before finally making their purchases. And because there’s no way to compete in eCommerce without an online presence, a business website is tax-deductible.
This means you can deduct expenses for the design, creation, and maintenance of your business website from your tax bill. From domain registration and website templates to web hosting and stock images, all costs related to business websites are included.
Digital marketing
Digital marketing can cover a lot of different aspects of the online world. So even if your website is considered as the primary source of your business’s online marketing costs, there are other deductions you can make. The costs of digital marketing are tax-deductible as long as they’re strategies for marketing your company to potential customers, or the operating costs of an online store.
You can also pretty much claim any costs involved with leveraging the online environment to reach customers, such as search engines, websites, email marketing and blog management. And just like the costs of adverts in the real world, marketing expenses for advertising online are also deductible. This can include contextual adverts in search engines, website ad banners, smartphones ad placements, and even promotional video production.
Marketing tools
Aside from the costs of digital marketing, there are also several online tools and services which are used to reach more potential customers or help you engage with current clients. So if any of this sounds familiar, you’ll be happy to know that these subscription costs can also be deducted.
If you’re unaware, this encompasses an ever-increasing number of digital tools to help you expand your reach online. You can claim expenses for optimising your website to rank higher on search engines, publishing email newsletters, and even scheduling posts on social media as they’re considered to be fairly common tools and services for business marketing by the ATO.
Social media marketing
Speaking of social media, you can also claim marketing expenses associated with maintaining the social accounts of your business.
This is because social media is like advertising in that it also has the potential to help make sales and increase your market reach. So not only does it include the costs of hiring someone to update your content, but also for compensating social influencers for cross-promotion or product placement.
Aside from the content and interaction on your social media, many other social and search marketing campaigns are often also tax-deductible. This covers the costs of running PPC (pay-per-click) advertising on social media or search engines, as well as any expenses for hiring experts to design, launch, and run the campaigns.
Final tips
Remember, all incurred expenses must always be related directly to the costs of running your business, and it’s essential to keep detailed records that support your claims. Everything provided in this article is strictly for informational purposes only. Always discuss tax deductions with your accountant to determine their eligibility.
