Linux, Mac users - your copy of Windows may be tax deductible

David M Williams
Thursday, 16 July 2009 11:55

Opinion and Analysis

That’s right; the Australian Tax Office’s e-tax software is a Windows-only product. If you run it within a virtualised Microsoft Windows on your Linux or Mac computer you may be eligible to tack the Windows tax onto your tax return!

Earlier today I reported that the latest version of WINE can now successfully install e-tax in a Linux environment.

While better than previous years, it is still little comfort to Macintosh users or those who may not be able to get WINE working for whatever reason.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has not indicated any interest in producing either a cross-platform edition of e-tax or a release for any non-Microsoft operating system.

Yet, the ATO does state e-tax has been successfully tested on a MacOS computer running Windows under Virtual PC.

There is no reason to doubt e-tax also works equally well within any other virtualised Windows environment, be it on a Linux or MacOS platform, using Parallels, Virtual PC, Xen, VirtualBox or VMWare.

Yet, while you may be using a free operating system (Linux) and a free virtualisation product (VirtualBox, say) you are still legally required to purchase Microsoft Windows for your virtual environment.

The question has arisen – including by readers to this very site – whether such a purchase of Windows could possibly be tax deductible, given the ATO does permit expenses incurred in preparing and filing your tax return to be deducted – such as the fees you would pay to a tax agent.

The answer would appear to be a clear ‘yes’ based on a private ruling issued by the ATO.