By Ben De Rosa
Tax time raises the same questions for employed lawyers every year. The ATO publishes an occupation guide for lawyers, with worked examples, that settles most of them. Here are the points that matter most.
Practising certificates and admission
Your admission fees and your first practising certificate are not deductible, because you pay them so you can start work, not in the course of it. Each yearly renewal is deductible if you need it for your current job and pay for it yourself.
Union and professional association fees are deductible too, and so are Supreme Court library fees you pay every year, but not a fee you pay only once on admission.
Suits and court dress
Business suits and shirts are conventional clothing, so they are not deductible, even if you only wear them to work and court. In the ATO’s example, a solicitor who meets clients and attends hearings cannot claim buying or washing the suits and shirts he only wears to work.
Occupation-specific clothing is different: the ATO’s examples include a judge’s robes, and its ruling on clothing adds a barrister’s robes. The same ruling says judges’ robes and barristers’ silk robes last five to ten years, so their cost is claimed over that time, not all at once. If you buy court dress yourself as an employee, check before you claim it.
Driving to court
The drive between home and your regular office is private, even when a client calls you in after hours. Driving from home straight to court, or between your office and court on the same day, is deductible, and so are parking and tolls on those trips and a taxi from your office to court.
For 2025-26 the cents per kilometre rate is 88 cents, capped at 5,000 work kilometres per car.
Hearings away from home
When work requires you to travel and sleep away from home overnight, such as an interstate hearing or mediation, you can claim accommodation, meals and incidentals, unless your employer pays for them or pays you back.
A same-day trip does not qualify.
CPD, study and seminars
Self-education is deductible if it directly relates to your current job and maintains or improves the skills you need, or is likely to increase your income from it. In the ATO’s examples, a solicitor can claim an online course on client interviewing and a commercial lawyer can claim a Masters of Commercial Law, but a clerk cannot claim Practical Legal Training to be admitted.
Fees for a Commonwealth supported place are never deductible, even if you pay them upfront, and neither are study loan repayments.
Books, laptops and bags
Law books, journals and equipment are claimable for their work use. An item costing $300 or less can be claimed in the year you buy it, if you use it mostly for work and it is not part of a set, or one of several identical items, costing more than $300 together.
Above that, you claim its decline in value over its effective life, as a solicitor in the ATO’s example does for the $450 leather satchel he uses to carry documents to court.
Insurance
Professional indemnity insurance is deductible if you pay for it yourself, but not if your employer pays it. Income protection premiums are deductible too, but not cover for other things, such as personal injury, that comes bundled with them.
What never counts
Entertainment and social functions, even compulsory ones; club memberships, even if they help you keep clients; gifts for clients; hairdressing and grooming; and the cost of moving when you are transferred.
The $1,000 standard deduction from 2026-27
From the 2026-27 return, lodged from July 2027, Australian residents earning a salary or wage get a standard deduction of up to $1,000, applied automatically with no receipts. It is not a bonus: any work expenses you claim reduce it dollar for dollar.
Union and professional association fees and income protection premiums sit on top of it. The ATO’s list of costs that sit outside it does not include practising certificates, so check before you claim your renewal on top of the $1,000.
Records
For the 2025-26 return you are lodging now, if your work expenses (other than car, travel allowance and overtime meal allowance claims) total $300 or less, you can claim them without receipts, although you still need to be able to show what you spent and how you worked it out.
From 2026-27 that shortcut ends, and anyone claiming more than the standard deduction needs written evidence for their work expenses.
This article is general information, not advice for your circumstances. The full guide, with the ATO’s worked examples, is at aevumaccounting.com.au/lawyers.
