As a doctor, you wouldn’t prescribe a patient with half of the medication they’d need – and the same logic should apply to your Tax Return.
Don’t bother doing half a job with your Tax Return – make sure that you deduct everything that you’re entitled to and optimise your tax refund.
If you’re a doctor or medical staff, make sure you don’t forget to claim all of your tax deductions. Don’t leave anything out of your online tax return. If you save every little bit, and deduct everything you’re entitled to, the tax return can be massive.
What qualifies your tax deduction?
There are only three main requirements that qualify as an expense for tax deductions, which is calculated against your income:
- You must have spent the money and not have been reimbursed
- It must be related to your job
- You must have a record to prove it
Remember, a record isn’t necessarily a receipt. There are tax deductions you can claim without a receipt. Continue on to find out more.
What constitutes an expense as “related” to your job you might ask?
Here’s a definition of your taxable income, and a list of doctor tax deductions.
What is your taxable income
Your taxable income is money generated from your employer or your work. Your taxable income also includes:
- PAYG summaries
- Pensions and government allowances
- Interest earned (banks etc)
- Dividends
- Rental property income
- Business income
- Other income earned (capital gains etc)
Doctor specific Tax-deductible expenses
- Buying work clothes/doctor uniforms (if required to wear them and/or they have a logo)
- The cost to laundry clothes/uniforms
- Protective clothing items
- Purchase of equipment and tools up to $300
- Depreciation expense of equipment and tools over $300
- The repair and/or upkeep of tools and equipment
- Home office expenses (if needed to work from home)
- Interest generated from loans relating to work activities
- Self-education and courses if they are related to your doctor work
- Licences and certificates relating to your doctor work
- Fees from joining a union/other similar organisations
- Subscriptions and magazines relating to your work
- Travel expenses if work related
- Driving between two places of work in your own vehicle. This is usually best claimed using the cents per km method of claiming a tax deduction.
Protective clothing
As a doctor, you’re no doubt having to use a fair share of protective gear and clothing. Usually if you’re working in a hospital you’ll be supplied with your protective clothing, but if you aren’t and you buy the clothing yourself, you can claim the purchase as a tax deduction.
If you need a hand deducting this, create an account with One Click Life and make sure you get the help from someone that knows what they’re doing.
Purchase of tools and equipment
The purchase of tools and equipment for your doctor’s work, if they are less than $300, can be claimed as a straight tax deduction. If the purchase was more than $300, then you’ll have to claim the depreciation expense. That’s right, your engraved stethoscope is a tax deduction.
This is typically a cost your employer will front, but if you spend the money yourself, you can claim it as a deduction.
Self-education and licences
Any cost you spend to further your medical knowledge, or to obtain licences you need to practice, can be claimed as a tax deduction. If you’re on the fence about expanding your knowledge, keep it in mind that your education expenses will lower your tax payable.
Get the help of a professional to calculate your education and licence expenses.
General
- Car expenses and general wear if your car use is work related (estimated Km or a logbook with all expense items)
- Travel expenses for your work (flights, taxis and trains etc)
- Accommodation needed for work reasons (including meals)
- Work phone bills
- Work related computing
- Work from home costs
- Self-education
- Tax Return fees dating to the year previous
- Insurances
- Rental expense (if you are renting)
- Charity donations and gifts
- Sun protection (if you have to work outside)
Maximising your Tax Return with an online tax agent
There will be more tax tips and deductions for Australian doctors that aren’t on this list. Tax deductions are not only industry specific, but also change from individual to individual.
The best way to claim the most you can is with One Click Life.
The more you deduct, the less tax you pay and the more money you can spend on yourself. Clearly, you will want to deduct the most you can, and the sure-fire way to do that is with OCL’s easy-to-use platform.
If you can claim OCL’s fees back on tax as a deduction too, why wouldn’t you use our platform to minimise your tax payable?
One Click Life offers online Tax Returns at your fingertips in an easy-to-use platform run by some of the best heads in the industry. Your Tax Return can be done in just 60 seconds and is overseen by one of our pros!
How easy and stress free is that?
Taxes, health insurance, and wills can be time-consuming and tedious. Our app allows you to be able to do this fuss-free, giving you a simple way to organise, track and manage all of your life admin in one place.
Let One Click Life take care of your Tax Return, and life’s essential tasks so you can spend more time doing the things you love.