Australia Tax Refund Calculator

It depends on whether your employer withheld more through PAYG than your actual tax bill turns out to be. On a $95,000 salary paid fortnightly with $580 in work-related deductions claimed (400 work-from-home hours plus $300 of tools), this calculator estimates about $20,930 withheld through the year against $20,734 of actual tax payable, an estimated refund of around $196. Most standard PAYG employees who claim any work-related deductions end up with at least a small refund, because PAYG withholding is calculated on your gross pay with no deductions factored in, deductions only reduce your tax bill at lodgment time. Enter your own numbers below for your actual estimate.

You end up owing extra when your actual tax payable is higher than what was withheld through the year. This commonly happens with a second job or extra income that wasn't factored into your main employer's withholding, an employer withholding at the wrong tax-free threshold rate, investment or rental income with no tax withheld on it at all, or bonuses and irregular pay that push your effective annual income above what your regular pay-period withholding assumed.

Your employer withholds an estimate of your tax every payday, using ATO withholding schedules. Those schedules effectively assume your current pay rate repeats every period, all year, and apply the standard annual income tax brackets and Medicare Levy to that annualised figure, then divide the result back down per pay period. Because this happens before any deductions are considered, it typically withholds slightly more than your final tax bill for anyone who ends up claiming work-related deductions at lodgment.

Five common categories a typical PAYG employee might realistically claim: working from home under the ATO's fixed-rate method (currently 70 cents per hour, covering energy, internet, phone and stationery costs in one rate), self-education directly connected to your current role, tools and equipment or professional subscriptions, union or professional association fees, and income protection insurance held outside super. This isn't every deduction category the ATO allows, just the ones most standard employees can plausibly claim without extensive record-keeping beyond a logged hours count or receipts.

No, deliberately. HECS/HELP withholding and repayment is a separate calculation with its own marginal thresholds and indexation mechanics, already modelled in full on the Australia HECS/HELP Repayment Calculator. Mixing it into this refund estimate would either duplicate or oversimplify that logic, so this calculator focuses on income tax and the Medicare Levy only. If you have a HELP debt, your real refund or amount owed will differ from what's shown here once your compulsory repayment is reconciled too.

It's a solid estimate for a standard employee with one job and steady pay, but PAYG withholding is modelled by annualising your regular pay-period gross and applying the same tax scale used elsewhere on this site, the method the ATO's own withholding tables are built from. It doesn't model the Low Income Tax Offset (which can make real withholding slightly lower below roughly $35,000/year), bonuses, irregular pay, multiple employers, or investment income. For your exact position, lodge your return through myTax or a registered tax agent.

For most categories here you generally need some form of substantiation: a logged record of work-from-home hours (a diary, roster, or timesheet) for the fixed-rate method, and receipts or invoices for self-education, tools, union fees, and insurance premiums. The ATO can and does check these at tax time, so keep records as you go rather than reconstructing them in June; this calculator estimates the tax effect of amounts you can substantiate, it doesn't verify your claims.