Mining PPE, protective clothing and sun protection

A mine site tells you what to put on before it lets you through the gate, and that gear is the clearest deduction a resources worker has. The respirator that keeps silica out of your lungs, the earmuffs against a crusher, the arc-flash gear on the switchboard, the steel-caps and the hi-vis: you bought them to survive the hazard, so they come back to you. What trips people up is the rest of the kit, the plain trousers and the drill shirt the site also insists on, which look just as compulsory and are not deductible at all. This chapter splits your gear along that line, adds the sun protection an open pit demands, and covers the washing and the records for a year of swings.

The PPE you buy yourself

The ATO treats safety gear as a protective item, not clothing, so it qualifies on its own footing whether or not you also wear a uniform. The rule behind every item below is the same: it guards you against a real and likely risk of injury or illness, and the money was yours. Where the employer issues the gear or pays you back for it, you have incurred nothing, and there is nothing to claim.

• Steel-capped boots and hard hats, the footwear and head protection a site will not let you past the gate without.
• Hi-vis so you are seen around haul trucks, loaders and moving plant.
• Safety glasses and goggles, gloves and hearing protection, the earplugs and earmuffs you wear against processing and drilling noise.
• Breathing masks and respirators against dust and silica, the exposure that makes them a genuine health measure underground and in the pit.
• Fire-resistant and arc-flash clothing where the work around energised equipment or flammable material calls for it.

The claim is wider than the first purchase. Buying, repairing, replacing and cleaning all of this come back to you, so the respirator cartridges you swap out and the boots you wear through mid-roster are deductible in the year you replace them, not just the year you first kitted up.

Sun protection and protective eyewear for outdoor work

If your shift keeps you in the open, on a pit bench or operating in the sun for prolonged periods, the sun is part of the job's hazard and the gear you wear against it is deductible. Sunscreen, a sunhat and sunglasses all qualify where the work exposes you like that.

• Sunscreen, a sunhat and sunglasses for the hours the roster keeps you exposed, with any private use apportioned out.
• Prescription sunglasses and anti-glare glasses are in, which is the surprising part, because it is the protective element you are claiming.

Hold onto the distinction, because it is easy to get backwards. Ordinary clear prescription glasses are private and stay off the return even when you wear them every shift, since nothing about them protects you from a work risk. Put protection against glare or the sun into that same prescription and it crosses the line. The lens does not decide it; the hazard it guards against does.

The catch: conventional clothing

This is where solid claims come undone. Everyday clothing you would wear in any job is not deductible, and the fact that the site mandates it and you only ever put it on for a shift changes nothing. Plain jeans, drill shirts, shorts, trousers, socks and ordinary closed shoes are conventional clothing, full of dust or not.

• The mandate carries no weight. The test asks whether the item itself protects you, not whether the job required it or you wear it nowhere else.
• Heavy-duty does not mean protective. Cargo pants without a logo are still ordinary clothing, however rugged, so they do not count.
• What actually qualifies. Genuinely protective items, a compulsory logo uniform, a registered non-compulsory uniform, or occupation-specific clothing. Outside those, the wardrobe stays private.

Laundry

Once a garment is deductible, washing it is too, and the ATO lets you claim it at a set rate rather than keeping every receipt.

• $1 a load where the wash is only your work clothing.
• 50c a load where it goes in with the family washing.
• The $150 line. If your laundry claim comes to $150 or less you need no written evidence, but you still have to show how you worked it out, which for a roster is loads a week across the weeks you were on.
• Dry-cleaning and repairs at what they actually cost you.

Across a full year of swings a load a shift is a real figure, not loose change, so the count is worth keeping honestly rather than guessing at it in July.

The records behind it

Each item here stands on its own receipt, and this is a category of small, frequent buys that are the first to vanish: the docket for the boots, the cartridges for the respirator, the note of how you split private and work use on the sunglasses, and the loads-a-week basis behind the laundry figure. The ATO's free myDeductions app will hold those receipts and a work-use note through the year if you log them as you go.

The bottom line

Sort your kit into what protects you and what is simply what you wear. The steel-caps, the hi-vis, the respirator, the earmuffs and the arc-flash gear all come back to you, and so does the sunscreen, the hat and the sunglasses when the shift keeps you in the sun, prescription lenses included. The plain jeans, the drill shirt and the ordinary shoes do not, however strictly the gate enforces them, and neither does washing them. Net off anything the employer supplied or paid back, get that split right, and keep the receipts and the laundry count so your claim lands on what the work honestly costs you.

General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.