For a sparkie the wardrobe divides cleanly in two when the return is due, and most people claim from the wrong half. The arc-rated shirt you throw on before working a live board, the insulated gloves, the steel-toe boots, the safety glasses, each keeps a genuine hazard off you, so its cost comes home. The plain drill shirt and jeans you happen to wear alongside them do not, no matter how insistent the job is. Beneath the lot runs a single test: your own money, no reimbursement, and a real work risk the item shields you from.
Arc-flash and protective gear you buy yourself
Whatever you pay for to fend off a real or probable risk of injury or illness at work is deductible, and the ATO shelves it as a protective item, distinct from clothing, so it holds up on its own without any uniform. For an electrician the marquee item is arc-flash gear, since a flashover is the very kind of danger the rule was drafted for. The lone requirement: you bore the cost and were not paid back. Gear the boss issues, or reimburses, cost you nothing, so there is nothing to put down.
Purchase is only half the story. Repairing, replacing, laundering and buying these items all flow back to you, which puts the repeat buys in scope too: arc-flash gear retired once it passes its rating, or gloves that flunk a test, is a fair claim each year rather than once only.
Sun protection for outdoor work
Plenty of electrical work is done outdoors: cable pulled over a roof, a fresh estate being wired, site power going in. Where the job leaves you under the sun for long spells and you wear the gear to guard against that, it qualifies.
Plain clear prescription glasses remain private, worn all day on the job or not, because nothing in them protects you from the work.
The catch that costs electricians: conventional clothing
This is where sound claims quietly unravel. Barring a few exceptions, clothing is not deductible, and an order to wear it changes nothing.
- Drill shirts and work trousers are named. The ATO points to the drill shirts and shorts of tradespeople as conventional, settling the exact item most sparkies reckon they can claim.
- The mandate is beside the point. What matters is the item and whether it protects you, not whether the job demanded it or you wear it only there.
- Plain jeans, trousers, socks and closed shoes. All conventional clothing, off the return even on an employer's orders and even if you pull them on for a shift alone.
What does clear it: genuinely protective items like the arc-flash gear above, a strictly enforced compulsory logo uniform that identifies the employer, or a registered non-compulsory uniform. Past those, ordinary clothing does not qualify.
Laundry
When a garment is deductible, its washing is too, and no drawer of receipts is needed. The ATO allows a set per-load rate for laundering the protective clothing and uniform that qualify, figured by method rather than plucked from the air.
Where a load holds only your deductible work clothing, the ATO's per-load rate is the higher one.
Where the work gear rides through with the household washing, the per-load rate drops to the lower one.
Beneath a modest yearly total you can claim laundry without written evidence, though the figure still needs working: loads a week times weeks worked is the backing. Dry-cleaning and repairs come in at actual cost, on the receipts. The boundary drops out of the clothing rule: no claim for laundering conventional clothing, however filthy it comes home, because washing something that was never deductible is not deductible either.
The records behind it
Every item above needs its record, and this is a run of small, frequent buys, the first to vanish.
- The arc-flash gear receipt and any other protective item you bought.
- The docket for replacement gloves, the repeat buy being claimable too.
- A note of the private-versus-work split on the sunglasses.
- The loads-per-week working under the laundry figure.
The bottom line
Divide what you wear into what shields you and what is merely clothing. The arc-flash gear, insulated gloves, steel-caps, safety glasses, hard hat and hi-vis all return to you, and so do the sunscreen, hat and sunglasses when a job holds you in the sun. The plain drill shirt, jeans and everyday closed shoes do not, however hard the job pushes them, and their washing is out too. Get the split right, subtract anything reimbursed, hold the receipts and the laundry count, and the claim rests on what the work honestly costs you.
See what your arc-flash gear, protective clothing and laundry claims come to at tax time.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.