Tax can be a piece of cake

Studying

Study claims

Self-education expenses are the costs you incur when studying at a school, college (such as TAFE), university or other recognised place of education to get a formal qualification.

You may be able to claim a tax deduction for self-education expenses if you work and study at the same time. You can claim if you:

• are upgrading your qualifications for your current job
• are improving specific skills or knowledge used in your current job
• are employed as a trainee and undertaking a course as part of that traineeship
• can show that at the time you were working and studying, your study led, or was likely to lead, to an increase in employment income.

Example

Adam is studying business accounting at TAFE and works nights as a call centre operator. Adam paid $150 for textbooks and $500 for course fees.

Adam cannot claim any self-education expenses for his textbooks and fees because there is no direct connection between his job and his study.

However, if Adam's job was directly related to his study - for example, he worked as a bookkeeper for a small business - he would be able to claim for his textbooks and course fees.

You can also claim a deduction for self-education expenses if, in doing the course, you are meeting the study requirements to receive a taxable scholarship.

You can work out if you are eligible to claim by using our Self-education eligibility tool.

Common self-education expense deductions

Some common self-education expense deductions include:

• stationery and photocopying
• textbooks, professional and trade journals
• student union fees
• cost of repairing a computer you use for study purposes
• interest on a loan to purchase a computer.