Deductions & Common Mistakes

Quick summary

⚠

Deductions

✓Real, work-related, with receipts

✓D15 is not a catch-all

✓We fix inflated-claim errors

Video coming soon

ALITAX · Bilal Jivraj — Registered Tax Agent 25287564. Original guidance from 10+ years of DASP and tax casework.

Deductions can genuinely increase your refund — but only when they are real and correctly claimed. This chapter shows you how to claim properly, and the common mistakes that get people audited.

The golden rule: you need to have spent it, on work

You can only claim a deduction if you actually paid for it, it was directly related to earning your income, and you have a record to prove it. Keep your receipts — without them, a deduction can be denied on audit.

Find what you can actually claim

Check deductions.alitax.com.au to see the legitimate deductions for your occupation, and lodge them with us at alitax.com.au/deductions to get the most out of your return — the right way.

Common mistakes we see (and fix)

Over years of reviewing returns, we see the same costly errors again and again — often on returns people lodged themselves or through operators who inflated them:

1. Missing the Medicare levy exemption

Many Fijian and PALM scheme workers — and others — miss out on the Medicare levy exemption they are entitled to, or wrongly pay the 2% levy. At ALITAX, we check this for every client.

2. Wrongly claiming under “Other deductions” (item D15)

At ALITAX we see people claim large random amounts — for example $14,550 — in the “Other deductions” section (item D15), giving themselves an extra ~$4,500 refund they are not entitled to. That section is reserved for very specific things, not general expenses. It is for items such as:

Income protection, sickness and accident insurance premiums
Election expenses for local, state or federal candidates
Certain sharing-economy or marketplace income expenses
Foreign exchange losses; certain debt deductions
Certain business-related capital expenditure (section 40-880 start-up costs)
Net personal services income (PSI) losses; certain primary production capital expenditure

This is not a place for random claims

Item D15 is not a catch-all for work expenses. Claiming amounts here that do not belong is exactly the kind of error the ATO audits — and because it is your declaration, you repay it with penalties.

3. Travel and car claims with only one job

At ALITAX we see travel and car expenses claimed together by people who had only one job — and when we ask, they confirm they never travelled between work sites. Ordinary home-to-work travel is not deductible. Claiming it is a red flag.

4. Uniform claims when uniforms were provided

People claim $1,800 in uniform expenses when their uniform and everything else was provided by the employer. If you did not pay for it, you cannot claim it.

5. Donations to non-DGR organisations

Donations to a church or mosque are only deductible if that organisation is a registered Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR). Most local places of worship are not DGR-registered, so those donations cannot be claimed.

Why we are strict about this

We do it properly because it protects you. An inflated refund feels good until the ATO audits it — then you repay it, with interest and penalties, often after you have left the country. We claim everything you are genuinely entitled to, and nothing you are not.

✎ Written by Bilal Jivraj

Original work of Bilal Jivraj, Director and Registered Tax Agent (No. 25287564), ALITAX — based on 10+ years of DASP and tax casework. © 2026 ALITAX. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, republished or distributed without the written permission of the author. When referenced, please cite ALITAX — Bilal Jivraj as the source.