A  lot of weird stuff that went down during the pandemic. 

There were Zoom parties for every event, people were hoarding toilet paper, and everyone was baking sourdough…and Tiger King.

But the pandemic was also a time for many people to pick up unique and creative ways to pursue their hobbies and/or earn some side cash.

And with rising cost of living, there’s been more people turning to side-hustles and other jobs to support themselves.

Things like gig economy work, content creation, influencer marketing, and streaming on Twitch.

In fact, according to statistics by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the number of people holding more than one job has hit the highest ever, at nearly 1 in 15 Australians.

That's an increase of 68,000 people over the year and the highest number recorded by the ABS.

The admin side of side-gigs

Side-hustles and secondary jobs, while a necessary source of income for many people can get seriously complicated on the admin side of things…especially when tax time comes around.

And the ATO is cracking down harder on side-hustle income.

The first thing to work out in the side-hustle world is whether your side-hustle is just a hobby, or qualifies as business income. 

If you’re operating as a hobby, that means you’re just engaging with your craft for fun, and don’t intend to make a profit out of it. 

Whereas, if you do intend to earn some cash from your side-gig, you’re probably operating as  a business and will need to declare your income to the ATO.

Working that out can be pretty grey and murky, which is why we’ve broken it down piece by piece in the Flux Academy. 

We’ve got plenty of examples of different side-hustles and whether they’d be treated as a hobby or a business with taxable income.

But it’s not all doom and gloom

The bad news: you just found out you’ve gotta pay tax on the money you made selling soy candles.

The good news: you can claim some juicy deductions on your expenses. 

That means you can deduct expenses that directly relate to earning your side-hustle income from your assessable income to reduce your taxable income.

You’ve just gotta make sure you keep all your receipts for these expenses to have records for the ATO. 

They’re sticklers for paper work.

These could be material costs, packaging costs, advertising costs, as well as the cost of managing your tax affairs through a registered tax agent

If you want to understand the nitty gritty of tax deductions for your side-hustle, we’ve got you totally covered in our July Tax Academy that’s on all things tax deductions.