Australian Tax

Tax tips and tax implications for students

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

The school year is about to start, so this this is a good time to recap on some implications of tax and schooling.

Work full time/part time, study part time

If you work full time or part time, then to claim school expenses your study must relate directly to your current occupation. If you are doing the study so that you can change jobs or even move into a different field in the same company, then the schooling is not deductible. Keep in mind that you must have started the job before you begin the study.
For schooling and study that is work related, remember to record all your mileage and keep all your receipts. Your tax agent will sort out what you can claim and what you can’t. It is better to have too much documentation than not enough. If you do your own tax, the ATO website can give you more details.
HECS/HELP is not claimable.

Study full time, work part time

Each time you start a new job, you will be asked to fill out a tax file number declaration form. If you are a student working part-time to make ends meet, and have two or more jobs, the second and subsequent times you fill one of these forms you should tick no to question 9 on the form, the question that asks “Do you want to claim the tax-free threshold from this payer?” Do this even if you do not work the jobs at the same time. When your first job, for example, is from July to September, and your second is from December to June. Better still, tick no to that first job as well. You don’t miss money you never had to start with. If you have no other tax expenses you will get money back at the end of the year, and if you do have other tax expenses the extra money you paid to the Tax Office might just cover most of those expenses.
Don’t forget you have to pay tax on your bank interest. In most cases, tax has not been taken out of the interest and will increase your income. Remember, too, that bank interest is taxed at a much higher rate for students under 18 than it is if you are over 18.
HECS/HELP is not claimable.

We’ll look into these in more detail in future blogs.