Training to be a specialist is expensive, and a lot of that cost lands on you rather than the hospital. College training-program fees, the written and clinical exams, the courses and question banks you buy to survive them: for a registrar this is the deduction that dwarfs every other line on the return. It is also the one the ATO looks at hardest, because it sits right on the edge of what counts as study for your job and what counts as study to change it. Get the test right and thousands of dollars come off your income. Get it wrong and it is the first thing questioned.
Why this is your biggest deduction
Most work-related claims are small: a stethoscope, some laundry, a share of your phone. Self-education is a different order of magnitude. College fees and exam fees run to thousands of dollars a year, and once you add the prep courses, the question banks and the textbooks, self-education is usually the single largest deduction an employed doctor has.
Self-education is one of the most-audited areas on the individual return, so the reward for getting the test right is real, and so is the cost of getting it wrong.
The test: your current role, not a new one
Everything on this page turns on one question, so it is worth stating precisely. Self-education is deductible where it maintains or improves the skills you use in your current duties, or is likely to increase your income from your current employment. It is not deductible where it only relates to your work in a general way, or where it enables you to get employment or move into a new field. That second limb is the one that catches doctors.
What you can claim when it qualifies
Once the study passes the current-role test, the deduction reaches well beyond the fee itself. The full cost of doing the training is in play.
A depreciating asset you buy for study, like a device or model, comes off in full the year you buy it.
Claimed as decline in value over its effective life instead.
Two hard exclusions to attach every time
Two things carve into the self-education claim so often that they belong on every doctor's return as a matter of habit. Both remove money you might otherwise assume is yours.
- Anything the employer pays or reimburses. If the hospital reimburses your course or pays it through a CPD or education allowance, that portion is not yours to claim, because you did not bear the cost. Only the unreimbursed part you funded personally is deductible.
- HELP, HECS-HELP and course fees put on your HELP debt. Repayments of a HELP or HECS-HELP loan are never deductible, and course fees you fund through HECS-HELP rather than pay yourself are not deductible either. This is the myth that costs interns and registrars the most.
Conferences, and the overseas apportionment trap
Conferences follow their own logic, and it is where an overseas trip can quietly turn a good claim into an overclaim. Start with the part that never varies: the registration fee for a conference related to your current work is always claimable. The travel around it is where the care goes.
Only incidental private activity, a catered lunch or a single sightseeing afternoon. Claim the full airfares, accommodation and meals.
A real mix of conference and holiday. Apportion airfares and claim accommodation and meals only for the conference days.
Essentially a holiday with a conference tacked on. Airfares and accommodation are private — claim the registration only.
Eight nights away with six days of conference means six days of accommodation and meals, and a fair split of the airfares. Keep a travel diary for any trip of six or more nights, recording what you did and when. A spouse's or family member's costs are never deductible, however the trip is structured.
The records behind a self-education claim
A claim this large stands or falls on its paperwork, and because it is so heavily reviewed the paperwork has to be better than average.
- Receipts and invoices for every fee, course, book and trip, held for five years.
- A note against each one of why the study relates to your current role, written at the time rather than reconstructed later.
- The travel diary for longer trips, and the split you worked out between conference and private days.
If you would rather not keep a shoebox of college and exam invoices, the ATO's free myDeductions tool inside the ATO app lets you photograph and log each one as you pay it, so the year is already assembled when you lodge.
The bottom line
Self-education is where the real money is for a doctor, especially a registrar, and where the ATO looks hardest. Claim it where the study relates to the specialty you are already employed in, and leave out anything that only qualifies you for a new field. Take the fees, the prep, the books, the mandatory courses and the work portion of the travel, but strip out whatever the hospital reimbursed and never touch HELP or HECS-HELP. On conferences, claim the registration always and apportion the travel honestly against how much of the trip was actually work. Back it with receipts and a note of the connection to your role, and the biggest deduction you have is also one you can stand behind.
See what your college fees, exams, courses and conference travel come to at tax time.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.