You claim the foreign income tax offset in your income tax return.
Before you calculate your net income, you must convert all foreign income deductions and foreign tax paid to Australian dollars, refer to Converting foreign income to Australian dollars.
To claim a foreign income tax offset of up to $1,000, you only need to record the actual amount of foreign income tax paid on your assessable income (up to $1,000).
If you are claiming a foreign income tax offset of more than $1,000, you have to work out your foreign income tax offset limit. This may result in your tax offset being reduced to the limit. Any foreign income tax paid in excess of the limit is not available to be carried forward to a later income year and cannot be refunded to you.
If you paid foreign income tax after the year in which the related income or gains have been included in your assessable income, you may amend your assessment for that year to claim the offset.
The foreign income tax offset reduces your income tax payable (including Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge). Under the tax offset ordering rules, it is applied after all other non-refundable tax and non-transferable offsets. Once your tax payable, Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge has been reduced to nil, any unused foreign income tax offset is not refunded to you, nor can it be carried forward to later income years.