Police study, licences and association fees

Studying for the sergeant's exam at the kitchen table, renewing a clearance you have held for years, paying your association fees on direct debit: these are the quiet costs of staying in the job and getting ahead in it. Some are deductible and some are not, and the line runs through the same place every time. A cost you pay to keep doing your current role, or to do it better, is generally claimable. A cost you pay to get into the job in the first place, or to leave it for something else, is not. Get that line right and this whole chapter follows.

Study for promotion and specialist work

Study is deductible when it maintains or improves the skills you already use, or is likely to lift your income in the role you are in now. A detective working a criminology or forensics degree that sharpens current duties and improves promotion prospects has a clean claim. The connection to the job you hold today is what carries it.

• What you can claim. Course and enrolment fees, textbooks and stationery, and travel to seminars and conferences. If a course requires you to stay away overnight, the accommodation and meals for that stay come in too.
• The catch. Study to leave the force, or to set up for a different career, is not deductible, however useful it feels. The test is the link to your current role, not to where you hope to end up.
• Your study loan stays out. HECS-HELP and other study-loan repayments are never deductible, even when the study itself is. The fees you pay directly can qualify; the loan repayments cannot.

If you are still getting in

The study, qualification and initial clearances you needed to become an officer are not deductible. There is no police income yet to connect them to, so the door-opening costs sit on you. That changes the day you are employed and paid: from there, promotion and role-related study is on the table.

• Already sworn and at the academy. A serving officer training at the academy can claim the travel to get there, and where the training requires an overnight stay, the accommodation and meals that go with it.
• The catch. The recruit course that first qualified you does not count, no matter what it cost. Employment and pay are what turn academy training into a deduction.

Licences, clearances and checks

The same in-versus-continue split runs through your paperwork. The first licence, permit or card you needed to land the job is a cost of getting in, so it is not deductible. Renewing one you already hold, to keep doing your current duties, is.

• Renewals you can claim. Renewing a licence, permit or card to continue in your role, including a working-with-children check or a security clearance, is deductible.
• The initial one is not. The clearance or card you obtained to start the job is part of getting in, and it stays off.
• Your driver's licence never counts. Even though the job plainly requires you to drive, a driver's licence is a private, everyday expense, and the ATO treats it that way for everyone.

Association and club fees

Your police association or union fees are deductible in full, and for most officers they run on direct debit, which is exactly why they get overlooked. Check the statement, because a year of monthly debits adds up.

• What you can claim. Police association and union membership, straight through.
• The one club exception. General club memberships are private and not deductible. The ATO makes a single carve-out: a Federal or State Police pistol club joined to improve your firearm proficiency for work is deductible. A social golf or sporting club is not, whoever else is a member.

Phone and internet

If you take work calls on your own phone or get contacted off-shift, the work-use share of your phone and internet is claimable. Work it out from a representative period rather than picking a round number, and if your work use is under $50 for the year and only incidental, you can claim it without detailed records.

• The catch. Checking your own roster or payslip is your business, not work use. That side of it does not count towards the claim.

The ones that trip officers up

A few costs feel job-related but only qualify under narrow conditions, and this is where returns tend to slip:

• First aid training. Deductible only if you are a designated first-aid officer who needs the training for the role. A general first-aid course you did off your own bat does not qualify.
• The police dog, for handlers. The cost of maintaining and training the dog is deductible only where you pay it yourself and are not reimbursed. In practice the service usually provides the dog and covers its costs, so there is often nothing left to claim, and security fencing at your home for the dog is never deductible.
• Overtime meals. A meal bought while working overtime is deductible only where you also receive an overtime meal allowance under an award, shown separately on your income statement and declared as income. No allowance, no claim.

The records that hold these claims up

These deductions come down to paper, and they are the easy ones to lose because they arrive spread across the year: a renewal notice in autumn, a course invoice mid-semester, twelve small association debits. Keep the receipts, the renewal notices and the course invoices, and for each one keep a short note of how it connects to the role you do now, since that link is the thing the ATO actually tests. The free option is the ATO's own myDeductions app, which will hold the basics.

The bottom line

Run every study, licence and fee cost through the one question: are you paying it to keep doing the job you have now, or to do it better? If yes, and you funded it yourself and can show the record, it belongs on your return. The promotion study, the clearance renewal, the association fees, the work share of your phone: claim them, leave off the initial qualifications and the driver's licence, and get the fitness and firearm-club lines exactly right. What you are owed for staying sharp in the role is worth claiming properly.

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