What a plumber pulls on for a shift lands in one of two piles at tax time, and plenty of people reach for the wrong one. Steel-caps, the knee pads that carry you through a day on a slab, waterproofs for wet work, heavy gloves and safety glasses: each shields you from a real danger, so each finds its way back onto the return. The plain shirt and trousers you're also stuck wearing do not, however grim a shift under the house leaves them. The line holds firm: you paid, no one refunded you, and the item stands between you and a genuine risk of the job.
Protective gear you buy yourself
Anything you fund to shield yourself from a genuine or likely risk of harm on the job earns a deduction, and the ATO counts it as a protective item, not clothing, so it holds up on its own with no uniform needed. The lone string attached is that the cost fell to you and went unreimbursed. Where the firm issues the gear or pays you back, you're out nothing, so there's nothing to claim.
And it runs past the first purchase. Buying, mending, replacing and cleaning any of these all trace back to you, so the repeat buys land as well: a set of waterproofs bought again once the last pair finally goes is a fair claim season after season, not a single event.
Sun protection for roof and outdoor work
Spend an afternoon running flashing on a roof, or working an open trench, and the sun becomes a hazard of the job, which is why the gear you meet it with is deductible. Where the work forces long spells in the sun and you wear these against the exposure, they qualify, and roof and outdoor plumbing clears that mark easily.
Plain clear prescription glasses stay private, worn all day on a roof or not, since nothing about them guards you from the work.
The catch that costs plumbers: conventional clothing
This is the spot where sound claims quietly collapse. Bar a handful of exceptions, clothing isn't deductible, and an order to wear it doesn't move the needle.
- Plain work shirts and trousers. The ordinary shirt and pants you plumb in are conventional clothing, which decides the item most plumbers reckon they can claim.
- A mandate is beside the point. What's weighed is the item and whether it protects you, not whether the job demanded it or you never put it on anywhere else.
- Everyday footwear, socks and jeans. Conventional clothing across the board, gone from the return even where the boss requires them and even after a day under a house wrecks them.
What clears it: truly protective items, a compulsory logo uniform that's strictly enforced and identifies the firm, or a registered non-compulsory uniform. Past those, ordinary clothing just doesn't get there.
Laundry
Where a garment is deductible, so is its wash, and no drawer of receipts is required for that. The ATO takes a fixed per-load rate for cleaning the protective clothing and uniform that qualify.
When the load holds nothing but your work clothing.
When work clothing rides through with the family washing.
The small-total concession: keep your laundry claim, dry-cleaning aside, below the ATO's fixed yearly total and written evidence isn't required, though you still have to lay out how the number was reached. Loads per week against the weeks you worked is what carries it. Dry-cleaning and repairs come off at their real cost, on the receipts. That ceiling flows straight from the clothing rule: washing conventional clothing isn't claimable even caked from a trench, because a wash can't be deductible if the garment underneath never was.
The records behind it
Each item above leans on its record, and this category is all small, frequent buys, the very things first to fall through.
- The boot receipt, and one for any other protective item you bought.
- The docket for the fresh waterproofs, since the repeat buy is claimable too.
- A note on the work-and-private split for the sunglasses.
- The loads-per-week working that sits under the laundry figure.
The bottom line
Divide your gear into what guards you and what is merely what you happen to have on. The steel-caps, knee pads, waterproofs, gloves, safety glasses and ear protection all come back, and so do the sunscreen, hat and sunglasses when the job pins you in the sun. The plain shirt, the trousers and the ordinary boots do not, however hard the boss enforces them, and their wash doesn't either. Get the split right, take out anything you were reimbursed, hang onto the receipts and the laundry tally, and your claim rests on what the work honestly costs you.
Total your protective gear, wet-weather kit and laundry against your income and tax.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.