Tax questions about institute fees

[Diamond Girl]

I am an accountant so I can answer this for you.

You claim your expenses in the year you paid them, even though they were incurred for previous years. Therefore you can claim the whole amount in your 2010 tax return. The reason for this is because individuals incur expenditure on a 'cash basis', rather than 'accruals basis' which is the method most businesses use.

That being said, you can only claim these fees IF you earnt assessable income as a teacher at some point in the same period. This means that you had to actually earn income from teaching at any point during 1/7/09-30/6/10. If you did, then you most certainly should claim the whole amount.

If you want further information, the ATO website has useful information about what you can claim and when you can claim it in the section called 'other work related expenses'.

I hope this helps

[AliBaby]

Diamond Girl- Thank you so much for your reply. I am sure this is a busy time of year for you!
That is great news for me as its about $350 worth of fees I paid in the last financial year and I have been teaching during that time.
Thanks again