Income You Must Declare Checklist
Check off every type of income you received this year. Your progress is saved in this browser only — nothing here is submitted anywhere.
Income You Must Declare Checklist
Most people know their salary counts as income — it’s everything else that trips people up. This checklist walks through every category the ATO lists under “income you must declare,” organized so you can check off what applied to you this year before you sit down to lodge. It also covers the flip side, just as important: cash gifts, lottery wins, and a handful of other amounts that don’t need to go in your return at all, so you’re not second-guessing yourself either way.
Employment Income Goes Further Than Your Payslip
Beyond ordinary wages, this covers commissions, bonuses (including retention bonuses to stay with an employer), parental leave pay, cash tips and gratuities, jury attendance fees, and income from sharing-economy or app-based work (rideshare, food delivery, freelance platforms). It also includes lump sums when you leave a job — employment termination payments, unused annual and long service leave — and reportable fringe benefits or employer super contributions your employer reports on your income statement, even though you don’t pay extra tax on those specific amounts.
Investment Income: The Full Amount, Not the Net
A common mistake: declaring rent after your managing agent’s fees are deducted. The ATO wants the full gross rent paid by the tenant — you claim the agent’s fee separately as a deduction. Dividends work similarly: if your dividend carries a franking credit, you declare both the cash amount and the franking credit (which usually earns you an offsetting tax credit). Interest, crypto asset income, managed investment trust distributions, and capital gains on anything you’ve sold or disposed of all belong here too. If you own an asset jointly, you only declare your actual ownership share — a 70/30 split stays 70/30, not an automatic 50/50.
Government Payments — Even the “Tax-Free” Ones
Government payments split into taxable (age pension, JobSeeker, Youth Allowance, Austudy, parenting payment, and others) and tax-free (certain carer and disability payments where you’re under age-pension age). The catch: even tax-free government payments often still need to be declared, because the ATO uses them to check your eligibility for tax offsets and other benefits — “tax-free” doesn’t always mean “leave it off the form.”
Running a Business, Partnership or Trust
A sole trader declares business income directly in their individual return — there’s no separate business tax return to lodge. A partnership itself pays no tax, but each partner must declare their share of the partnership’s net income in their own return whether or not they actually received a cash distribution that year. Trust beneficiaries work the same way: your entitled share is assessable even if it hasn’t landed in your bank account yet.
What You Usually DON’T Need to Declare
The ATO groups these into three types: exempt income (tax-free but sometimes still reported for offset purposes — certain pensions, carer allowance, child care subsidy, some student allowances), non-assessable non-exempt income (never assessed at all — the tax-free part of a termination payment, genuine redundancy “Lump Sum D” amounts, super co-contributions), and other non-taxable amounts — birthday and other special-occasion gifts given out of love, ordinary lottery and raffle wins, most game-show prizes, and child support or spouse maintenance you receive. The exception worth remembering: a gift or prize tied to your business or income-earning work can lose that exemption.
Who Should Use This Checklist?
Anyone getting ready to lodge an Australian tax return who wants a quick memory-jog before they start — especially if your income this year wasn’t just a single, straightforward salary. It’s a prompt-and-point-to-the-source tool, not a replacement for myTax’s own pre-filled data or a registered tax agent’s advice on your specific situation.
What This Checklist Doesn’t Cover
It doesn’t calculate any tax figure — for that, use the Australia Income Tax Calculator, GST calculator, or Tax Withheld calculator in this series. It also doesn’t cover the age-based taxable/tax-free component split for superannuation pensions, the lump-sum-payment-in-arrears tax concession, or the full legal distinction between “exempt,” “non-assessable non-exempt,” and “assessable” income — each links back to the ATO’s own dedicated page rather than being fully reproduced here.
Official Sources
- ATO — Income you must declare
- ATO — Employment income
- ATO — Investment income
- ATO — Government payments and allowances
- ATO — Amounts you do not include as income
Frequently Asked Questions
What income do I need to declare on my Australian tax return?
Employment income, investment income, most taxable government payments, business/partnership/trust income, foreign income, super pensions, compensation payments, and most scholarships/prizes tied to work or business.
Do I need to declare income I haven’t actually received yet?
Sometimes — a partnership share is declared whether or not it was actually paid out, and rent is generally declared when the tenant pays it, not when your agent forwards it.
Do I have to declare gifts, lottery winnings or child support?
Generally no, unless a gift or prize is tied to your business or income-earning activity.
Why do I need to declare tax-free government payments at all?
The ATO uses them to work out your eligibility for tax offsets and other benefits, even though you don’t pay tax on the amount itself.
This checklist is a memory aid, not tax advice or a substitute for your myTax pre-fill data. Your progress is stored only in this browser’s local storage — it is not submitted to any government system or to iSabiPayment. Confirm your specific declaration requirements with ato.gov.au or a registered tax agent.
