Teacher car, excursion and camp deductions

Teaching does not keep you at one desk. Some weeks you are driving a debate team to another school, meeting your class at the pool for the swimming carnival, or heading bush for three days of camp. A lot of that costs you money before anyone pays you back, and a fair share of it is claimable. The trick is knowing which trips count and which the ATO treats as your own, because a couple of common assumptions here are wrong, and they are the ones that get a return sent back.

The trip that is never deductible: your drive to school

Start with the rule that catches almost everyone. Getting from home to the school you regularly work at, and home again, is private travel. It stays private even when you leave at dawn for a rehearsal, drive an hour each way from a country town, or fill the boot with a weekend's worth of marking. The reasoning is simple: that trip gets you to work, and the ATO treats getting to work as your cost to bear, not the job's. However early the start or long the haul, your normal run in to your own school does not go on your return.

The travel you can claim

Plenty of teacher driving does count, and it is easy to overlook. You can generally claim:

• Between two workplaces on the same day. If you teach at one school in the morning and another that afternoon, the drive linking them is work travel.
• To an alternate workplace for the same employer. Taking students to another school for a debate, a competition or a shared class is a work trip, not a commute.
• Home straight to an alternate workplace. Driving from home directly to the pool for a swimming carnival, or to the venue rather than to your own school, is deductible.
• Transporting students. Ferrying your class or team to an excursion venue in your own car counts as work travel.

The two car methods: pick the one that pays more

Once a trip qualifies, there are two ways to work out what your car is worth, and you use whichever gives the bigger deduction:

• Cents per kilometre. A set rate for every work kilometre, up to 5,000 work kilometres a year. You do not keep receipts, but you do have to show how you arrived at the kilometres, so note the work trips as you make them. The rate is reviewed each year, so check the current figure on the ATO's page rather than an old one.
• Logbook. You work out the share of your driving that is for work, then claim that share of your real running costs: fuel, servicing, insurance, registration and the car's decline in value. It takes more effort but tends to win once your work kilometres climb.

One thing to watch: the cents-per-kilometre rate already has running costs built in, so you cannot also claim your fuel or service receipts on top of it. That is double dipping, and it is a fast way to draw attention.

The narrow exception for bulky gear

There is one situation where even the drive from home can count. If your work requires you to carry bulky, essential equipment, and there is no secure place to store it at school, that home-to-work travel may become deductible. This is a genuinely narrow test. A tub of your own supplies you choose to cart back and forth does not meet it, and a laptop is not bulky. It is worth knowing the exception exists, but for most teachers the everyday commute stays off the return.

Excursions and camps

When you attend or supervise an excursion, a sporting trip or a camp with a real curriculum or educational purpose, the costs you cover out of your own pocket to be there are deductible. On an overnight trip that extends to your own meals and accommodation while you are away. So the camp fee you paid yourself, the entry you covered, your own bed and meals on a three-day trip: where the trip is part of your teaching duties and you funded it yourself, those are claimable.

The catch: being paid back kills the claim

This is where camps trip teachers up, so it is worth being precise. If the school pays the cost or reimburses you for it, you have not spent your own money and there is nothing to claim. Schools reimburse camp costs often, so check before you assume a big trip is deductible. A travel allowance is a different thing from a reimbursement, and the difference matters: an allowance is income, it goes into your return as income, and you then claim your actual costs against it. Two more lines to keep straight. Meals are deductible only when the trip keeps you away overnight, so a meal you buy on a day excursion is private. And if a trip is really a holiday with the teaching purpose tacked on the side, it is not a work trip at all.

The records that hold it up

Every one of these claims rests on a record, and a car and camp claim needs two kinds. For the driving, keep a logbook or a simple diary of your work kilometres, written down as you go rather than guessed at in July. For excursions and camps, keep the receipts for what you paid, and for a longer trip keep a travel diary of where you went and why. The moment to capture a cost is when it happens, on the trip, not months later from a bank statement. The ATO's free myDeductions app will cover the basics.

The bottom line

Your daily drive to your own school is private and always will be, but the between-school runs, the trips straight to a carnival, the students you drive to a venue, and the excursions and camps you fund yourself are genuine deductions. Use whichever car method gives you more, claim your own costs on an overnight trip, and drop anything the school paid back. Keep a note of the kilometres and the receipts as you go, and the running around your job asks of you is at least counted at tax time.

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