Obviously in a home office, or your own office this is a deductible item.
But if I buy one to use in my cubicle farm at work? It seems it is in the spirit of the law.
Basically I've had it with these ****ing piece of **** chairs they provide us. My posture is terrible because of them. I'm sizing up a Herman Miller Aeron. Physiotherapy is fixing a decade of bad chairs.
Thinking about a mechanical keyboard too.
So, are office expenses deductible when it's not your office?
(On a side note I think everyone should consider physiotherapy just because. I feel like a new person. I fit in my skin again.)
Talk to your accountant but it sounds reasonable enough to buy a chair you use at work. If you ever were audited the auditor would have to be quite mean to say no to such a deduction. However there is probably some rule saying you can't claim the purchase price of some equipment as a deduction if your employer provides the equipment. It probably takes about two volumes of the tax act to explain this. So talk to your accountant.
Yep, definitely...Chair and keyboard...so long as you don't then also claim it as an expense with your employer.
Yes..
Division 8 of ITAA 1997 deals with deductions.
s.8-1 GENERAL DEDUCTIONS
Provides that a loss or an outgoing is allowed as a deduction to the extent that it is:
s.8-1(1) POSITIVE LIMBS (Must be either:)
1)Incurred in gaining or producing your assessable Income
2)Necessarily incurred in carrying on a business for the purposes of gaining or producing assessable income.
s.8-1(2) NEGATIVE LIMBS (Cannot be any of the following:)
Outgoing is CAPITAL in nature (3 Tests s.8-1(2)(a))
O/g is of PRIVATE or DOMESTIC nature (only relevant to individuals)
O/g is incurred in producing EXEMPT income (i.e. prevent competition)
O/g is prevented by a provision of the ITAA
Select to expand quoteUnderoath said..
Yes..
s.8-1(1) POSITIVE LIMBS (Must be either:)1)Incurred in gaining or producing your assessable Income
So, why then can I not claim my suits, shirts, ties, shoes and vehicle all of which I only use to arrive at and appear in the office in order to earn my salary?!??!
Select to expand quoteCambodge said..Underoath said..
Yes..
s.8-1(1) POSITIVE LIMBS (Must be either:)1)Incurred in gaining or producing your assessable Income
So, why then can I not claim my suits, shirts, ties, shoes and vehicle all of which I only use to arrive at and appear in the office in order to earn my salary?!??!
Get a corporate logo embroidered on them. Preferably not your competitors.
whohoo free tax advice.
Can i claim speeding tickets (while working)
fridge in my car because I travel a lot and my car is a tool of trade at 90%
Select to expand quotemyusernam said..
whohoo free tax advice.
Can i claim speeding tickets (while working)
fridge in my car because I travel a lot and my car is a tool of trade at 90%
Penalties and Fines
Non deductible under s.26-5 ITAA 1997
Select to expand quoteCambodge said..Underoath said..
Yes..
s.8-1(1) POSITIVE LIMBS (Must be either:)1)Incurred in gaining or producing your assessable Income
So, why then can I not claim my suits, shirts, ties, shoes and vehicle all of which I only use to arrive at and appear in the office in order to earn my salary?!??!
You can claim for a uniform, either compulsory or non-compulsory, that is unique and distinctive to the organisation you work for.
Clothing is unique if it has been designed and made only for the employer.
Clothing is distinctive if it has the employer's logo permanently attached and the clothing is not available to the public.You can't claim the cost of purchasing or cleaning a plain uniform.
Yay for company logo Polo shirts (they're pretty popular at the top of the terrace),
Shirt $25, Cleaning $250 
Select to expand quoteSailhack said..
I swap my chair with an exercise ball on a regular basis.
A lot off places ban them due to the OSH risk of injury if they burst...
Evl I just happened to take some pics of my desk yesterday. Monitors & keyboard supplied by company.
The rest supplied by me & all successfully tax deducted over a few years (haven't been audited though!)
Chair - www.officeworks.com.au/
Get a good chair - best money you'll ever spend - you're in it 40hrs per week!!
Pay the extra $15 at officeworks for 3 year warranty. Return after 2 (*something* will be broken by then), instant exchange for new one.
M570 trackball
Razer Orbweaver stealth (mechanical keys) programmed w. 120 Autocad commands
3Dconnexion 6-axis mouse
Some personal software licences
Headphones
Phone dock
Evl
See your OHS officer for an assessment for your requirements. The company you work for should accommodate and supply you with the correct chair best suited to your needs.
KB - your monitors are too low unless you're a midget. 
Advice I was given after starting to suffer from back issues was "monitor(s) should be up so that your eyes are level with 1/3rd from the top of the screen.
Got a trackball also and have wondered about buying the razer keypad but not sure if I'd 'get it'?
Select to expand quotePitbull said..
Evl
See your OHS officer for an assessment for your requirements. The company you work for should accommodate and supply you with the correct chair best suited to your needs.
This is the best advice you've had so far. If your chair is a HSR risk then write the risk assessment. Once you have lodged the risk assessment (with OHS/HR) they have no choice but to rectify the problem.
your work are tightwads. If you spend 40 hours plus at a desk making them serious bank than they can shell out for a few wafers of comfort. expense it. If craig thompson can chalk up hookers as a legitimite work related expense (fkn ledgend) then you might be entitled to a chair due to problems with your lordosis/ preventative health issue.
i know this is not tax advice, but all serious desk jockeys could try this to help their core fitness . not sure of the tax deduction, the youtube one is free, but your problems are partly caused by desk, computer and couch
i like the mckenzie method.
www.physio-pedia.com/Mckenzie_Method
lordosis. and plenty of hand releif.
Select to expand quoteMahanumah said..Pitbull said..
Evl
See your OHS officer for an assessment for your requirements. The company you work for should accommodate and supply you with the correct chair best suited to your needs.
This is the best advice you've had so far. If your chair is a HSR risk then write the risk assessment. Once you have lodged the risk assessment (with OHS/HR) they have no choice but to rectify the problem.
I think it depends on the company. I once worked for a Vone company and the manager wanted me to sit at a shared desk that could accommodate 2 people, but had 8 people at it. I sent a question to HR about it, and nothing got done... Well, not straight away, but a month later they were building new desks... Hmmm come to think of it now, maybe they did listen
Select to expand quoteevlPanda said..
Thinking about a mechanical keyboard too.
What other kind is there?
Do you mean something apart from the scrabble tiles that seem to come on a lot of laptops these days instead of keyboards?
Am I the only one that has to a do a lot of typing for work and hates those things with a passion? I chose my laptop based on the keyboard as much as anything else, and only buy keyboards if I can practice typing on them to make sure they actually have some 'feel'.
Similarly I used to insist on trinitron screens, but LCDs now are awesome.
My new work chair was absolutely wrecking my back, and they refused to let me have a different one because it wouldn't match the others. WTF? I'm in a design office that doesn't have customers coming in.
After a few weeks I informed them in writing that every Wednesday I would be applying for workers comp because my back was a mess after sitting in the chair Mon and Tue. Twenty minutes later, someone came to my desk with keys to a car and told me to go and get myself a new chair.
Select to expand quoteHarrow said..
My new work chair was absolutely wrecking my back, and they refused to let me have a different one because it wouldn't match the others. WTF? I'm in a design office that doesn't have customers coming in.
After a few weeks I informed them in writing that every Wednesday I would be applying for workers comp because my back was a mess after sitting in the chair Mon and Tue. Twenty minutes later, someone came to my desk with keys to a car and told me to go and get myself a new chair.
Me too. When I first arrived they'd redecored the office and the new chairs sucked. I could feel my back going tense after just 30 minutes. Me and a colleague found a whole bunch of really good chairs from a lower floor being thrown out, so we replaced our new one with one of those.
The lady responsible for redecorating caught us and berated us like we were school children. She said I could swap chairs if I got a doctor's note, to which I replied it was a bit late by that stage. Welcome to Sydney where all the weirdos live.
I waited a few weeks and then snuck the better chair in, but it still sucks. Everything is too small.
Good to see I'm not the only that realised I spend more time in this chair than I do with my wife, and it's worth paying for quality (the chair, not my wife (paying not the quality (oh god I'm just making it worse and worse))).
Select to expand quoteevlPanda said..
, and it's worth paying for quality (the chair, not my wife (paying not the quality (oh god I'm just making it worse and worse))).
digging yourself in deeper and deeper......betcha don't let your missus read over your shoulder!
stephen
Set myself up in an efficient and ergonomic workstation. Highly productive environment where everything is within reach.
After four years of use, it is no longer efficient or productive. It's the mental hell experienced by battery hens.
Am looking into setting up a standing workstation, where I have to move, step sideways, bend down etc to keep the blood moving.
The only people I found who sell stand up workstations are high end swanky importers of Scandinavian fair trade ethical free range furniture.
There is a gaping void in the market.
Stand up for your health and demand a new workstation.
Select to expand quoteevlPanda said..I waited a few weeks and then snuck the better chair in, but it still sucks. Everything is too small.
Ha, had a similar thing a couple of weeks ago. We just moved to a new office, and I had the whole chair thing all over again, but I actually had taken my other new chair home on the train the day we vacated the office, and after a few weeks, had to sneak it past the decor Nazi's. Geez, we get the mushroom treatment anyway these days, so why they care I will never understand.
Has been my industry for 25 + years.
A lot of research is going on around the world at the moment as to the value of sit stand desking solutions.
Google "sitting is the new smoking" to view some typical research results.
Fad or the future standard we won't know for about five years but there is a continual stream of new products becoming available.
They will always be a more expensive option due to the cost of the mechanism to drive user ability. Typical corporates installations are now supplying approx 10% of new stations as user sit stand.
If they see real benefits, that will grow. At this stage the multi floor offices I have installed, most people don't use it, to lazy to stand up, even if its doing them good.
Guess thats why half the world still smokes even they know its killing them.
). 
Another saving grace for my back is placement of certain things in my office. I've placed items in my office (cordless phone cradle, water dispenser, certain reference docs) where, in order to get them, I have to leave my chair. It works out that on average, I'm out of my chair every 30 mins or so.
I think I'll have another look at that controller KD after reading through some comments on that linked thread, thanks. I'm at the stage where I've memorised a heap of hotkeys and shortcut keys for the cad software I use and the hand movements on the keyboard are beginning to bug me.
