Everything else in this guide leans on a single fact about you: how the pay arrives. Are you on a wage, or trading under your own ABN? For a cook that is the question that comes before all the others, and it quietly rewrites each of them, from what you may deduct, to what lands in your July return, to whether GST is ever your concern. Pin this down first, and the chapters behind it read straight.
Why this is the first question
PAYG employee, or a cook picking up catering gigs on an ABN? Both are everywhere in hospitality, and one person can be each in a single week, cooking a rostered dinner service at a restaurant and then invoicing their own catering job two days later. Which one you are in a given moment fixes what counts as a deduction, what shape your return takes, and whether GST ever enters the conversation. Cooks drift across the line all the time, so it pays to know which hat is on for which dollar earned.
Answer this cleanly and every knife, whites and travel rule in the rest of the guide slots into place. Skip it and you can waste a year applying rules meant for someone on the other side of the line.
How to tell which one you are
You will not find the answer in a contract. It shows in the mechanics of getting paid and in who runs the shift.
A caution worth keeping: the ATO looks at the substance of the whole set-up, not the ABN sitting in your wallet. An ABN on its own will not turn a job that is really employment into a business.
What the employed chef claims
If your pay comes through with tax already taken out, this guide was written with you in mind. Your task at tax time is recovering the costs of the job that you shouldered and were never repaid: knives you funded, off in one hit at $300 or under and spread above that, the sharpening and the roll, the whites and checked pants, the toque and non-slip shoes, a same-day drive from one venue to the next, a renewal of a food-safety card you already carry, your union dues, the work slice of your phone, and study that keeps your current cooking sharp. Every bit of it sets against your wages, with your tips declared on the income side.
What changes with ABN catering
Bill under your ABN and it is no longer a wage return you are filing. Now you are trading as a business, and that opens things up and adds weight in equal measure.
Treat that as a map, not the full manual. An ABN carries real, ongoing duties, more than one chapter can do justice to, and if it describes you, a registered tax agent with hospitality clients will more than repay the fee, especially the first year GST is in play.
Where PFO stops
Get this straight before you rely on any tool, this one included. PFO is not a registered tax agent, and it does not touch GST or BAS. It is made for the chef on wages, following your work deductions through the year and shaping them into an accountant-ready pack for a wage return. The instant the work turns into an ABN business with GST to charge and a BAS to file, that is an accountant's job, well outside what the guide or the app sets out to do.
If you are both in the one year
Cooking a wage roster at one restaurant while invoicing your own catering elsewhere is an ordinary pattern in hospitality, and the trick is to stop the two from running together. Your wages, your tips and the work deductions in this guide sit under the employee heading. The fees you invoiced and the business costs against them sit under the catering heading. Keep two tidy ledgers and neither one clouds the other at lodgement.
The records differ too
Whichever side you fall on, the move that protects you is capturing a cost the day it happens rather than rebuilding the year come July. What you actually hold, though, parts ways between the two.
Receipts for knives, whites and kit, a note of the work portion on anything shared between the kitchen and home, and a kilometre record or logbook for driving between venues.
A complete business ledger of takings and outgoings, plus BAS lodgements once GST is live. When GST arrives, a tax agent is the safe pair of hands.
On both sides, the ATO's free myDeductions app is enough to carry the basics.
The bottom line
Settle which one you are before anything else, since the rest depends on it. Trace how the pay lands: tax withheld with super paid in marks you an employee, and here your job costs offset your wages. Invoicing under your own ABN marks you a business, with a broader deduction list and, once past $75,000, GST and a BAS to manage, which belongs with a registered tax agent and sits outside PFO. Get that single call right and the time you put into tax goes to the right place, rather than untangling something that was never your knot to begin with.
If you cook on wages, see what your knives, whites, certificate renewals and driving between venues are worth on your return.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.