Do you know what the most common tax deductions for nurses and other health professional are?
Nurses and health professionals do an important job that keeps the rest of us fit and well, but if you’re in the medical profession and you’re not looking after your finances as well as you look after your patients, you could be missing out on an extra few hundred dollars at tax time. That’s definitely not good news!
To help you get up to date with what you can and can’t claim, we’ve put together this ‘Tax Deductions for Nurses and Health Professionals’ post as a general guide. For more information, or to get specific advice suited to your situation, please get in touch.
The work related expenses that nurses and health professionals may be able to claim as tax deductions include:
- Overtime Meals
- Travel expenses
- Personal car usage
- Overnight accommodation costs
- Uniforms and protective clothing
- Repair and cleaning of uniforms and protective clothing
- Safety items: gloves, non-slip nursing shoes, safety glasses, lab coats, aprons, stockings and vests
- Training and self education course fees
- Equipment and expenses related to training courses
- Purchase and repair costs of work related equipment
- Stationery
- Books and journals
- Work related phone and internet expenses
- Log book
- Briefcase or work bag
- Fob watch
- Union fees
- Professional memberships and subscriptions
- Annual certification fees
- Agency commissions/fees
Please note: This is a guide only. You need to meet particular criteria or be in receipt of allowances to be eligible to claim some of these expenses as a tax deduction. Your tax agent will advise you on what you can and can’t claim, in keeping with your own particular circumstances.
A few tax tips for nurses and health professionals:
Keep records
Keep a record of ALL your work related expenses. Include what the purchase/payment is, what it’s related to, date of purchase and the cost.
Save ALL your receipts
Even if you’re not sure whether you can claim an expense as a deduction make sure you keep every receipt. Your tax agent can tell you whether or not you can claim the expense.
#1 TIP: Snap a photo of each receipt then you can upload it straight in to your tax return in the Etax Local client portal.
Laundry costs
Uniform laundering claims under $150 require no records. If you are claiming the cost of repairs or dry cleaning, you will need to provide receipts.
Safety items for nurses
There are quite a few protective items, specific to the nursing profession that are tax deductible. These include items such as: non-slip nursing shoes, safety glasses, lab coats, aprons, stockings and vests. It’s likely that you use these regularly so make sure you claim them.
Personal car use
If you plan to claim expenses for the use of your own car, you will need to keep a record so that your tax agent can calculate what you can claim as a deduction. Our friends over at Etax Accountants have written a great post on the different methods of recording costs: How to claim tax deductions for car use on your tax return
Self education
Self education expenses can be claimed as a tax deduction if the study was directly related to your current job and may lead to an increase in income. Self education cannot be claimed if it is to obtain a new job or to start a business.
Need to do your tax return or want to talk to our accountants?
Our team are experts on tax deductions for nurses and other health professionals so if you’re unsure about whether or not an expense is claimable, they can help you out!
Get in touch with Etax Local today by calling 1300 174 689.
Alternatively, send us an email or request a quote and one of our friendly accounting team will get back to you as soon as possible.
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