Community Support Worker or Direct Carer

If you're a community support worker or direct carer, it pays to know what tax deductions you can claim at tax time. This information will help you to work out what:

  • income and allowances to report
  • you can and can't claim as a work-related deduction
  • records you need to keep.

Book an appointment at your nearest ITP tax agent.

Community support worker

Deductions you can claim

Check Mark

You can claim the cost of using a car you own when you drive:

  • between separate jobs on the same day – for example, from your first job as a personal care assistant to your second job as a disability support worker
  • to and from an alternate workplace for the same employer on the same day – for example, directly between clients’ homes.


X Mark

You can’t claim the cost of normal trips between home and work, even if you live a long way from your usual workplace or have to work outside normal business hours – for example, weekend or early morning shifts.

In limited circumstances you can claim the cost of trips between home and work where you had shifting places of employment (that is, you have no fixed place of work and you continually travel from one work site to another).

If you claim car expenses, you can use the logbook method or the cents per kilometre method to calculate your deduction.

If you use the logbook method, you need to keep a valid logbook to determine the percentage of work-related use along with written evidence of your car expenses. If you use the cents per kilometre method, you need to be able to show how you calculated your work-related kilometres and that those kilometres were work related.

If you claim your work-related car expenses using one of the above methods, you can’t claim any further deductions in the same tax return for the same car, for example petrol, servicing, and insurance costs.

To claim a deduction
for work-related expenses

You can only claim the work-related part of expenses. You can't claim a deduction for any part of the expense that relates to personal use.

You must have a record to prove it.

You must have spent the money yourself and weren't reimbursed

It must be directly related to earning your income

Get the most out of your tax refund with ITP.

tax expert

I want a tax expert to maximise my refund

Either in-person, over the phone or through email with maximum refund guarantee.

tax online

I want to do my tax online

Finish your tax return now, in minutes.