Media Professional Tax Deductions 2025-26: What You Can and Can't Claim

General information only. Speak with a registered tax agent for advice.

The ATO’s media professionals guide covers journalists, reporters and camera operators — including radio and TV presenters, who the ATO treats as media professionals for tax purposes (performers such as actors and musicians instead fall under the separate performing artists guide). What sets this occupation apart is a genuinely generous rule most other roles don’t get: a newspaper, wire service or professional publication subscription can be fully deductible where its content is specific to your beat — something almost no other guide allows for ordinary news subscriptions. The trade-off is a rule that surprises a lot of on-air talent: a clothing allowance to dress professionally on camera is taxable income, but the clothes themselves usually aren’t deductible, because they’re still conventional, everyday clothing.

What you can claim

Dollar ranges above are indicative of typical spending, not ATO limits. Claim what you actually incurred and can substantiate.

The working-from-home double-claim trap

If you use the fixed rate method (70c per work hour for 2024-25 and 2025-26) to claim your working-from-home running costs, that rate already bakes in home and mobile internet or data, mobile and home phone usage, electricity and gas, and stationery and computer consumables. The ATO’s media professionals guide is explicit that if you’re using this method, you can’t claim an additional separate deduction for these expenses. What you can still claim on top of the fixed rate is the decline in value of technology and office furniture (laptops, cameras, desks) and their repairs, plus items costing $300 or less claimed immediately.

What you cannot claim

• On-camera or on-air wardrobe. Even where your employer expects you to dress professionally and pays a clothing allowance for it, the clothing itself is conventional, everyday clothing and stays private — the allowance is still taxable income.
• Grooming, hairdressing and cosmetics. Private, even with a grooming allowance and even where your employer expects you to be well groomed on camera.
• Entertainment attended for general interest rather than work duties. A media professionals’ networking breakfast held to encourage colleagues to socialise doesn’t have the direct connection to your income-producing activities that on-duty attendance at a society event does.
• Streaming and pay TV subscribed to purely for general interest. The connection between “staying current” and your specific duties is too remote unless you can show the access is actually required for your role.
• Newspapers and magazines with no specific connection to your beat. General-interest reading, even by a working journalist, stays private unless it’s directly tied to your particular round.
• Prescription glasses and contact lenses, even where you need them to read a teleprompter or camera viewfinder. Only anti-glare or protective glasses are deductible.
• An unlisted or silent phone number. A private expense, regardless of any privacy concerns your on-air profile creates.
• Fines and penalties, even where incurred while travelling to cover a breaking story.
• Child care and your children’s education costs.

Worked example

Marcus is a print and online journalist for a metropolitan newspaper, earning $76,000 in 2025-26. He covers the local courts beat, subscribes to a legal-affairs wire service, and works from home two days a week.

At Marcus’s marginal rate of 30% (plus 2% Medicare levy), these deductions reduce his tax by approximately $521. Run your own numbers through the Tax Return Calculator.

Notice what isn’t in the table: a separate phone or internet line, and his general subscription to a national broadsheet he reads for personal interest. Because Marcus uses the working-from-home fixed rate, his phone and internet are already folded into the 70c-per-hour figure — adding them again would be a double claim. His general-interest newspaper doesn’t make the cut either, because it isn’t specific to his courts beat the way his legal-affairs wire service is. Compare working-from-home methods in the fixed rate vs actual cost scenario.

ATO audit triggers

• On-camera or on-air wardrobe claimed as a deduction, especially where a clothing allowance was also received. The allowance is taxable; the clothing usually still isn’t deductible.
• Phone, internet, electricity or stationery claimed on top of the working-from-home fixed rate. The fixed rate already includes all four.
• A pay TV or streaming subscription claimed in full without showing the required connection to specific work content. Only the portion tied to earning your income qualifies, and only where access is genuinely required for your duties.
• A general news or lifestyle subscription claimed as work-related without a direct, specific connection to your particular round or beat.
• Entertainment or social-function costs claimed where you weren’t actually performing work duties at the event.
• 100% work-use claims on a camera, laptop or phone with no apportionment.

Records you need

• Evidence connecting a publication or streaming subscription to your specific beat — for example, how the content relates to the stories you cover.
• A timesheet, roster, diary or similar contemporaneous record of the hours you worked from home, if you use the fixed rate method.
• A diary or log of car use for work-related trips, especially if you’re near the 5,000km cents-per-kilometre cap.
• Purchase records for any depreciating asset (camera, recorder, laptop) claimed on top of the fixed rate, including date and cost.
• Evidence you weren’t reimbursed for any item you claim — equipment, subscriptions and training in particular.
• If your total work-related claim (excluding car, travel and overtime meal allowance expenses) is $300 or less, you don’t need written evidence for that portion — but you still need to be able to show how you worked it out.

Key takeaways

• News, wire service and professional publication subscriptions are genuinely deductible for media professionals where the content is specific to your beat — a rule most other occupations don’t get for ordinary reading material.
• On-camera wardrobe stays private even with a taxable clothing allowance attached to it — the allowance being income doesn’t make the clothes a deduction.
• The working-from-home fixed rate (70c/hour for 2024-25 and 2025-26) already includes phone, internet, electricity and stationery — don’t claim those separately.
• Pay TV and streaming can be deductible for media professionals, but only the portion genuinely required for your specific duties, unlike the flat “never deductible” rule that applies to performing artists.
• Entertainment and social functions are deductible only when you’re actually performing work duties there, not simply attending as a professional courtesy.

Sources

• ATO: Media professionals – income and work-related deductions

Next step

• Run your estimate in the Tax Return Calculator
• Compare your claim shape in the Work-Related Deductions Calculator
• Compare working-from-home methods in the fixed rate vs actual cost scenario

Occupation guides

These role-specific guides cover the practical deduction rules, record-keeping checkpoints, and the best calculator to use next.

• Tax for Journalists — equipment, travel, subscriptions, and home office