Your accountant spent the financial year making your taxable income as small as legally possible. And to be fair… that’s their job, and they’ve done it well.
The crunch comes when you then apply for a home loan. The lender opens that same return and reads the number at the bottom as your income.
Things aren’t rosy.
This is the brick wall most self-employed buyers never see coming.
Legitimate deductions reduce what you pay in tax.
They also reduce the figure a bank uses to decide what you can borrow.
Your business might have a healthy cash flow, but your accountant can also (creatively, and legally) present it on paper as a modest earner.
Nothing dishonest has happened. The two documents just answer different questions.
There is a mechanism that helps. ➡️ Lenders can add back certain expenses that lowered your taxable income without leaving your pocket. Depreciation is the common one. Extra super contributions, genuine one-off purchases and interest on debt being refinanced can also qualify. The catch is that lenders differ widely on what they will restore, so the same financials can produce very different assessable incomes depending on who reads them.
That is why the two professions need to be in the SAME conversation, NOT consecutive ones.
An accountant who knows a client is buying within eighteen months can prepare the return with that in mind, itemising clearly so add-backs are easy to demonstrate. A broker who understands how the business runs can match the file to a lender whose policy fits it. Handled separately, in the wrong order, the client absorbs the gap.
Sitting alongside an accounting practice, we see this constantly. The tax conversation and the finance conversation are not two conversations. They are one, held at different times of year.
If you are self-employed and buying in the next year or two, raise it before your next return is lodged. Happy to walk you through it.
My Mortgage Concierge is licensed under ACL 392736 Sattout Accounting Services Pty Ltd. General information only — seek personal advice before acting.
