This section is about payments of income from working. These include:
- allowances
- payments from which tax was not withheld, including
- salary, wages, commissions, bonuses
- income earned from part-time and casual jobs
- income from income protection, sickness and accident insurance policies
- tips, gratuities and payments for your services
- consultation fees
- payments for voluntary services (honoraria).
Allowances include:
- car, travel and transport allowances, and reimbursements of car expenses (calculated by reference to the distance travelled by the car, such as 'cents-per-kilometre' allowances)
- award transport payments (paid under an industrial law or award that was in force on 29 October 1986)
- tool, clothing and laundry allowances
- dirt, height, site, first aid and risk allowances
- meal and entertainment allowances.
If you received a travel or an overtime meal allowance paid under an industrial law, award or agreement, do not show it on your tax return if:
- you spent the whole amount on deductible expenses
- it was not shown on your payment summary, and
- it does not exceed the Commissioner's reasonable allowance amount.
You cannot claim deductions for expenses that you paid for with that allowance. For more information, see Taxation Determination TD 2017/19 Income tax: what are the reasonable travel and overtime meal allowance expense amounts for the 2017–18 income year?