Claiming tax deductions in your first year in Australia

The three-part test for any deduction

For a work-related expense to be deductible, three things generally need to be true: you spent the money yourself and weren't reimbursed by your employer, the expense is directly connected to earning your income (not just generally useful for life, or for getting to work in the ordinary sense), and you can prove it with a record — usually a receipt or, for smaller items, a reasonable substitute like a bank statement plus a diary note.

If your employer reimbursed you, or provided the item, or paid an allowance specifically covering it, you generally can't also claim it as a deduction — that would be claiming the same cost twice.

The 'directly connected to earning income' part is where most confusion sits. Ordinary commuting from home to a regular workplace, for instance, isn't deductible even though you obviously need to get to work — the connection has to be more specific than that, such as travel between two different work sites in the same day, or work-required travel beyond your normal commute.

Common legitimate deductions for employees

Depending on your occupation, common categories include: uniforms or protective clothing that's occupation-specific (not ordinary clothes you could also wear outside work, even if you only wear them to work); tools and equipment required for your job, which for larger items may need to be depreciated over several years rather than claimed in full immediately; self-education directly connected to your current role (not a course aimed at moving into a different field); union or professional association membership fees; and a portion of home-office running costs if you genuinely work from home some of the time, calculated using one of the ATO's approved methods.

Professional development, licences or registrations required to do your specific job, and work-related phone or internet use (the work-related portion only, not the whole bill) are also commonly claimable where the connection to your income is clear.

What's claimable varies meaningfully by occupation — a nurse, a tradesperson, and an office worker have quite different typical deduction profiles, and the ATO publishes occupation-specific guides for many common professions that are worth checking against your own role.

The mistakes that show up in first-year returns specifically

Claiming ordinary clothing as a uniform expense is a common one — a plain black shirt worn at a hospitality job generally doesn't qualify just because it's required by the employer, unless it carries a distinctive company logo or is genuinely occupation-specific protective wear.

Claiming the cost of obtaining the visa itself, migration agent fees, or relocation costs as work-related deductions is another — these relate to your move and immigration status generally, not to earning income in a specific job, and are generally not deductible as work expenses (some very specific circumstances around employer-arranged relocation can differ; this is a case worth checking rather than assuming either way).

Claiming a home-office deduction without genuine work-from-home arrangements, or claiming 100% of a phone bill when only part of the usage is work-related, both tend to draw attention because they're easy for the ATO's data-matching to flag as disproportionate to a typical claim in that occupation.

None of these are unique to migrants — Australian-born taxpayers make the same mistakes — but new arrivals hit them more often simply because the rules aren't yet familiar, and because a genuinely reasonable-sounding assumption from a different country's tax system doesn't map across.

Records: the part that actually determines whether a claim survives review

The ATO's general position is no records, no deduction — if you're reviewed and can't substantiate a claim, it can be disallowed even if the expense was genuinely incurred and genuinely work-related. For most work-related expenses, that means keeping the receipt (a photo on your phone is fine) and, for items you use for both work and personal purposes, a reasonable basis for the work-related percentage you've claimed.

There are some simplified methods for common categories — a fixed cents-per-kilometre rate for work-related car travel below a threshold distance, for instance, or a fixed rate per hour for some home-office costs — that reduce the record-keeping burden compared to claiming actual costs, at the cost of sometimes producing a smaller deduction than a fully substantiated actual-cost claim would.

Building the habit of saving receipts as you go through the year — a folder on your phone, a shoebox, whatever works — makes October dramatically easier than trying to reconstruct twelve months of work expenses from memory in the final week before the deadline.

When to get help rather than guess

A first-year return with only salary income, no side work, and modest, well-documented deductions is genuinely manageable to do yourself through myTax. The moment your situation includes any of the following, it's worth at least a check-in with a registered tax agent: significant work-related expenses you're unsure qualify, income from more than one source (including any overseas income), self-education expenses, or anything involving a home office, motor vehicle, or equipment depreciation.

The cost of getting professional help is itself generally deductible in the following year's return — a registered tax agent's fee for preparing your tax affairs is a legitimate work-related-adjacent deduction, which softens the cost of using one.

For the broader question of whether to use a tax agent at all in your first year, see the dedicated comparison article in this series — it covers the trade-offs in more detail than fits here.

Can I claim my visa or migration agent fees as a tax deduction?

Generally no. These relate to your immigration status and move to Australia rather than to earning income in a specific job, so they typically don't meet the work-related deduction test. There can be narrow exceptions depending on specific employer-arranged circumstances — check with a registered tax agent rather than assuming either way.

Do I need a receipt for every deduction I claim?

For most expenses, yes — the general rule is no records, no deduction, even if the expense was genuinely incurred. Some categories have simplified record-keeping methods (like a fixed cents-per-kilometre car rate) that reduce but don't eliminate the substantiation requirement.

Can I claim ordinary work clothes as a uniform expense?

Usually not. Ordinary clothing you could also wear outside work generally doesn't qualify, even if your employer requires you to wear it, unless it's genuinely occupation-specific (protective gear) or carries a distinctive company logo that makes it unsuitable for everyday wear.

What's the most common first-year deduction mistake for new migrants?

Two opposite mistakes are both common: missing legitimate work-related deductions out of unfamiliarity with the rules, and over-claiming personal expenses (ordinary clothing, relocation costs, full phone bills) based on assumptions carried over from a different country's tax system.

Is the fee I pay a tax agent itself deductible?

Yes, generally — a registered tax agent's fee for preparing your tax affairs is deductible in the following year's return, which is one factor that makes using an agent less costly than the headline fee suggests.

Is this specific advice on what I can claim?

No. It's general information about how work-related deductions function in Australia. For your specific occupation and circumstances, a registered tax agent can confirm exactly what qualifies. For visa questions, Migratio matches you with a MARA-registered migration agent free.