No other trade fills a van with as much measuring gear as a sparkie does, and that gear is your largest deduction by a distance. A single job might lean on a multimeter, an insulation-resistance tester, a clamp meter and the cordless kit you charge overnight. You bought all of it because the work demanded it, so the spend is yours to claim. The snag is rarely whether a tester qualifies. It is the mechanics of claiming it, and those hinge on a single figure. Nail the $300 line and everything else about your gear follows.
The $300 line
What a piece of gear cost decides how you claim it, and that decision drives every other point below.
The full amount is deductible in the year of purchase. Side cutters, crimpers, a fish tape, a basic voltage tester: individually under $300, each one drops onto this year's return.
You claim its decline in value over its effective life. The insulation tester, the thermal camera, the cable locator belong here. Pick prime cost or diminishing value and keep to it for that item.
Two things need apportioning: private use and part-year ownership. If the cordless drill also does jobs around your own house, drop the claim to the work share, and if a tester arrived halfway through the year, count only the days you owned it. The mistakes tend to be mirror images: writing an expensive instrument off in full in year one when the law says spread it, and skipping a $520 combo kit on the belief it cannot be claimed. It can, only across several years.
The set trap on kits
This is the rule that trips up more tradespeople than any other, because it closes the obvious loophole. Buying a costly set one cheap piece at a time will not slip you under the $300 line.
A cordless combo kit, or a ratchet set, bought together for more than $300 is judged as one thing, so there is no full write-off even though each piece on its own is cheap.
Where you start holding a set, or a run of identical or near-identical items, in the same year and the lot comes to more than $300, it has to be depreciated, however inexpensive the individual pieces. The ratchet set is the example the ATO itself uses. A later replacement works differently: if one screwdriver gives out and you buy a single one to replace it down the track, that purchase is not part of a set bought that year, so it is fully deductible the year you buy it.
Depreciation keeps going
An instrument over $300 is not a one-return event. Every year until it is written down to zero, you claim that year's portion of its decline in value, and this is the slice people drop once the purchase is a couple of returns old. That insulation tester from two years back still has value left in it, so it belongs on this year's return, not only the one where you paid for it. The figure works off what the item has left in it and its effective life, and the ATO's own depreciation tool does the sum for you.
Calibration, repairs, insurance
The $300 line is about acquiring a tool. It says nothing about keeping one calibrated, repaired, insured or hired, and each of those stands as its own deduction.
The write-off that isn't yours
Generic trades articles love the instant asset write-off, and for a wage-paid electrician it is a trap. The rule was never written for you.
The instant asset write-off lets a small business deduct eligible assets straight away, up to a cap the ATO sets, and eligibility turns on turnover. It is a concession for ABN-holding businesses, not for employees. On a PAYG payslip your rule is the one on this page and nothing else: under $300 immediate, over $300 depreciated. That cap you keep reading about online has no bearing on your return. And if you are genuinely unsure whether you are an employee or a contractor on an ABN, that question reshapes what deductible means for the whole return, gear included.
The tool allowance catch
Spot a tool allowance on the payslip and it can feel like your tool claim is handled. The reality runs the other way: the allowance is income, and your deduction sits separately.
The records behind a tool claim
Every item above rests on the receipt behind it, and a gear-heavy return is exactly where the paper trail springs a leak.
- A receipt for every tool and instrument. Date, supplier, item and cost, held for five years.
- The calibration invoice each time an instrument goes away, since that running cost is claimable in its own right.
- A note of the work-use split on anything you also use at home, because that split draws the first question.
- Records for the lot once your total work-related claims top $300 for the year, not only the big instruments.
The bottom line
Split your tools and instruments by price. Under $300 is fully deductible this year, over $300 spreads across its life, and a kit is weighed as a whole no matter how cheap each part is. Keep claiming last year's testers until nothing is left to write off, fold in the calibration, repairs, a specific tool policy, finance interest and any hire, and hand the instant asset write-off back to the businesses it was designed for. Treat a tool allowance as income and claim your real spend beside it. Do all that with the receipts to prove it, and your gear bill lands on the return exactly where it should.
See what your tools, test gear, calibration and insurance come to at tax time.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.