Who is a dependant?
A dependant can be:
- your spouse (see the definition of spouse in Special circumstances and glossary)
- your parent or your spouse's parent
- a child who is under 21 years old (see the full definition of child in Special circumstances and glossary) who is not a student
- a student under 25 years old who is studying full time at school, college or university
- a child-housekeeper (your child of any age who kept house for you full time)
- an invalid relative (your or your spouse's child, brother or sister) 16 years old or older who:
- receives a disability support pension or a special needs disability support pension under the Social Security Act 1991, or
- has a certificate from a Commonwealth-approved doctor certifying a continuing inability to work
- an invalid spouse who:
- is paid a disability support pension or a special needs disability support pension, or
- has been certified as having a continuing inability to work by a medical officer of the Health Department or by a medical practitioner appointed to examine claimants for disability support pensions
- a carer spouse (see definition of carer spouse).
A dependant needs to be an Australian resident for tax purposes (see Completing individual information on your return form). If you have a dependant of a kind listed above (not including your or your spouse's parent, invalid brother or invalid sister) who was waiting to migrate to Australia in 2011-12, and you were taking the necessary and timely steps for their migration, we will consider that dependant to be a resident at all times you were a resident.
If you want to claim a tax offset for your dependants you need to work out your and your dependants' adjusted taxable income (ATI) for the relevant period to determine:
- whether you are eligible for a tax offset, and
- the amount of the tax offset you are entitled to.
The relevant period is identified in the questions dealing with the particular tax offset you wish to claim. This may be all of the 2011-12 income year or a period during 2011-12.
What is maintaining a dependant?
You maintained a dependant if any of the following applied:
- you and your dependant lived in the same house
- you gave your dependant food, clothing and lodging
- you helped them to pay for their living, medical and educational costs.
If you had a spouse for the whole of 2011-12 and your spouse worked at any time during the year, we still consider you to have maintained your spouse as a dependant for the whole income year.
We consider you to have maintained a dependant even if the two of you were temporarily separated, for example, due to holidays or overseas travel.
If you maintained a dependant for only part of the year, you may need to adjust your claim accordingly.
What is ATI?
The following amounts are used to calculate a person's ATI:
- the person's taxable income
- the person's reportable employer superannuation contributions (see IT2 - Reportable employer superannuation contributions for a more detailed explanation of what this is)
- the person's deductible personal superannuation contributions (see D12 - Personal superannuation contributions for a more detailed explanation of what this is)
- the person's adjusted fringe benefits (total reportable fringe benefits amounts multiplied by 0.535)
- certain tax-free government pensions or benefits received by the person (this does not include all government pensions and benefits that are exempt from income tax (see IT3 - Tax-free government pensions or benefits for the purposes of the income tests for more information on what pensions and benefits are included)
- the person's target foreign income (income and certain other amounts from sources outside Australia not included in your taxable income or received as a fringe benefit (see IT4 - Target foreign income for a more detailed explanation of what this is)
- the person's net financial investment loss (the amount by which the person's deductions attributable to financial investments exceeded their total financial investment income (see IT5 - Net financial investment loss for a more detailed explanation of what this is)
- the person's net rental property loss (the amount by which the person's deductions attributable to rental property exceeded their rental property income (see IT6 - Net rental property loss for a more detailed explanation )
- any child support payments the person provided to another person (seeIT7 - Child support you paid for an explanation of what these are).
How to work out ATI
You can use either our Income tests calculator or worksheet 1.
If you are working out the ATI of a person for the whole year, you can get the amounts for worksheet 1 from the person's tax return. Table 1 shows you where the relevant amounts are on the tax return.
Table 1 |
|
Working out ATI |
|
For worksheet 1: |
The amount comes from: |
(a) |
TAXABLE INCOME OR LOSS on page 4 of the tax return |
(b) |
T item IT2 on page 8 of the tax return |
(c) |
H item D12 on page 15 of the supplementary section of the tax return |
(d) |
U item IT3 on page 8 of the tax return |
(e) |
V item IT4 on page 8 of the tax return |
(f) |
X item IT5 on page 8 of the tax return |
(g) |
Y item IT6 on page 8 of the tax return |
(h) |
W item IT1 on page 8 of the tax return, multiplied by 0.535 and rounded down to the nearest dollar |
(j) |
Z item IT7 on page 8 of the tax return. |
If you are working out a dependant's ATI for part of the year, you cannot use the figures from their tax return. Instead, you must work out the amounts for the relevant period and complete the worksheet using these figures. The instructions at each offset question will tell you what to do.
If you are completing a tax return for a deceased person, or your spouse died during the year and you need to know their ATI for the whole of 2011-12, their ATI is the amount at (k) below:
- divided by the number of days the person was alive in 2011-12, and
- multiplied by 366.
This is the deceased person's ATI for the whole of 2011-12.