Private ruling: Self-education expenses
Date of advice: 13 May 2025
Published: 21 July 2025
Ruling period: DD MM YYYY
Date scheme commenced: DD MM YYYY

Ruling: Q1: Can you claim a deduction for the full cost of your course fees for the overseas postgraduate degree? | A1: Yes You are entitled to claim a deduction for your course fees for the postgraduate degree in the year the expenses were incurred. You have shown that there is sufficient connection between the course of self-education and your current income earning activities and it is accepted the study meets the requirements detailed in Taxation Ruling (TR) 2024/3 Income tax: deductibility of self-education expenses incurred by an individual . | Q2: Can you claim a deduction for the following expenses incurred for the overseas postgraduate degree? • airfares • transaction fees paid on course deposit • expected transaction fees on outstanding course balance. | A2: Yes. As outlined in paragraph 125 of TR 2024/3, your airfares incurred to participate in self-education are deductible as you are not living at the location of your self-education activity. They are part of the cost of undertaking the self-education activities. You can also claim a deduction for the transaction fees as they were also incurred as part of the cost of undertaking the self-education activities. | Q3: Can you claim a deduction for the interest incurred from refinancing your mortgage to pay for the postgraduate degree? | A3: Yes. You can claim a deduction for the interest you have incurred from refinancing your mortgage, as the funds are used to pay for your postgraduate degree fees, which are a deductible expense.

Relevant facts and circumstances: You have been employed by Company A full-time since YYYY. You received an offer to study a postgraduate degree commencing in YYYY. The course is full-time for 12 months. You are paying all of the course fees yourself. You paid a deposit excluding transaction fees in YYYY. You intend to pay the remaining fees at or before DD MM YYYY. You will refinance your home loan and get cash out to pay for the postgraduate degree. You intend to claim a deduction for the cashed-out portion of the home loan that you refinanced for the time that you remain employed at Company A. You are taking unpaid leave during your study, whilst remaining employed by Company A. Several of your senior managers have provided a letter expressing their support for your decision to pursue the postgraduate degree. In that letter, they advised that the course will significantly improve specific skills and knowledge required. These skills include: • data analytics • understanding advanced principles of firms and markets • business finance • organisational behaviour in leading individuals and wider teams • development and execution of corporate strategy As a manager at Company A, you oversee the delivery of complex regulatory and risk advisory projects, providing strategic guidance to financial services clients navigating evolving compliance landscapes. You work with clients to interpret regulatory expectations, mitigate risk exposure, and implement governance frameworks that drive sustainable compliance. You also play a key role in shaping Company A's internal strategy, contributing to business development initiatives, fostering client relationships, and developing regulatory thought leadership. You lead teams across multiple engagements and ensure alignment with project objectives, manage competing priorities, and drive solutions that meet both regulatory requirements and commercial imperatives. Key responsibilities: Project Leadership Managing the scoping, execution, and delivery of regulatory engagements, ensuring alignment with client needs, industry standards, and firm objectives Regulatory & Compliance Providing expert guidance to clients on financial services regulations, including prudential standards, conduct risk, credit risk, financial crime, and regulatory reporting obligations Mergers and Acquisitions transaction advisory Supporting mergers of prominent Australian companies through comprehensive policy reviews, compliance plan integration, new governance structures, and ongoing change management activities Stakeholder Management Engaging with senior executives, regulators, and industry bodies to drive strategic compliance initiatives and respond to regulatory change Business Strategy & Growth Developing client solutions, identifying market opportunities, and contributing to the firm's strategic direction through business development activities Operational Risk & Governance Designing and implementing risk management frameworks, control structures, and governance models to enhance clients' operational resilience International Collaboration Working with accounting firm A's global network to align international regulatory approaches and support clients in navigating requirements across jurisdictions Industry Thought Leadership Contributing to white papers, regulatory reports, and public discourse on emerging risk trends and policy developments Team Leadership & Mentorship Managing high-performing teams, overseeing junior staff development, and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement Process Optimisation & Innovation Identifying potential efficiencies for clients in regulatory processes, leveraging technology solutions where appropriate You were initially employed in one role but have since been promoted to manager. It is Company A's practice not to send a new job description upon each promotion. Your current role as a manager is relatively similar to the description above. However, you now have additional leadership, project management, coaching, strategy and sales responsibilities. You are studying the following subjects: Accounting Subject description Objectives: There are two primary objectives for the course. The first is to build your understanding of the subject of accounting. We can define accounting as the process of identifying, measuring and communicating economic information, with the purpose of informing decision-making relating to the financial performance and financial position of an organisation. At the heart of accounting is a model for recording and presenting economic information, which is summarised in a balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. The starting point in understanding accounting is grasping how this model works. A deeper understanding of accounting then requires an appreciation of both the strengths and limitations of accounting data. The second objective is to build your understanding of financial reporting more broadly, including areas such as financial statement analysis, corporate valuation models, investor relations, audit and governance. This course will enable you to: • read and interpret financial statements, and understand the 'language of business' that is used in the business media and elsewhere • perform financial analyses of companies, for example for the purposes of financial management and control, or for investment or credit decisions • evaluate your own organisation's reporting policy and strategy. Relation to employment A sound knowledge of accounting gives a fundamental view of client size, performance and trends relevant to its business model which forms a foundation of my advisory work. It is relevant to various prudential risk assessments, capital adequacy reviews and financial crime risk evaluations. Both EFG and JKL are core subjects in the current program, signalling a strong correlation between risk advisory and accounting. Examples This subject will help you to potential impacts of regulatory changes on financial reporting (e.g. new AORA or ASIC guidance on disclosure requirements) and providing effective advisory services to clients on these issues. This subject will help you to understand a client's balance sheet to assess its current risk exposure, including financial risk, default risk, market risk and credit risk to guide my work over the course of a risk advisory engagement. Improving governance practices for clients. Analytics Subject description Objectives: In the current competitive environment, it is important to understand the relationships between different business factors, to forecast trends, to appreciate the risks arising from management actions, and to optimise investment strategies. Decisions are often taken under considerable uncertainty and time pressure. Therefore, managers need to be able to grasp the range of uncertainty rapidly and make rational decisions, which are both flexible and robust. This course aims to enhance your ability to apply modern decision technology and statistical methods to decision-making. It is a practical course, which uses Excel to illustrate how to apply the methodologies introduced. The course is multidisciplinary with links to accounting, economics, finance, marketing and operations management. Relation to employment Used in financial risk modelling, financial crime detection, and compliance monitoring. Improves my skills in advanced risk analytics, fraud detection, and stress testing. Examples You will be able to develop credit risk models for a bank's risk-weighted asset calculations. Business finance Subject description Business finance is about how to value projects and firms, raise money to pay for them, and manage the risk of running them. In learning about these things, you also gain an understanding of portfolio management. Relation to employment As you have stepped up into a managerial role, you are now regularly asked to price projects and assess the risks involved with running them end-to-end. This subject will improve your skills in understanding the commercial viability of projects, including the future cashflows needed to cover ongoing project costs and non-financial considerations that also need to be factored in. Examples You will be able to price a prospective Company A engagement, including required resources expected margin vs target, scoping, and drafting a relevant statement of work to send to client. It will also assist you in understanding the financial and non-financial risks and considerations that are involved with managing projects and/ or deciding to agree to a project. Firms and markets Subject description The first part of the Firms and markets course applies to the principles of microeconomics to business decisions. Microeconomics studies the behaviour and interaction of producers, consumers and other economic agents. In this course we will focus on the choices of firms and the implications for industry dynamics. The course covers the building blocks of supply and demand, competition and monopoly. In addition, we discuss the important managerial topics such as pricing methods, strategic interaction between firms and auction design. Students without any economics are recommended to invest a substantial amount of time ensuring that they have grasped the basic material. In addition to mastering the basics of microeconomics, students will learn how to use these ideas to address managerial problems. During the course student will analyse a number of case studies, as well as conduct an in-depth industry study. The second part of the Firms and markets course is an application of the principles of microeconomics, to macroeconomics problems; the analysis of the national and the global economy, with special emphasis on the role of governments and central banks. The teaching will assume that by now, students have a solid base in microeconomics, as taught in the first part of the course. By the end of the course, we expect that students will be able to understand the policy debate, critically assess the various arguments, and understand the implication of policy to business decisions. The teaching will be both analytical and applied. Relation to employment This subject will help you to assess market risks, competition, regulatory interventions in financial services and the broader economic landscape which drives demand for Company A's advisory services. This subject will support your development in your current leadership role at Company A in refining your pricing methods for projects, understanding sector competition in professional services and others, and improve your ability to position your team as a market leader. Examples This subject will assist you with the following: • developing an awareness of current market conditions, which will support your go-to-strategy to engage potential new clients. • pricing engagements appropriately based on current competition in the market and macroeconomic conditions • being better informed and proactive in understanding public policy and key drivers of incoming regulation facing prospective clients, and their impact on clients' business decisions. Marketing Subject description: Marketing plays a critical strategic role in all firms. The marketing function has responsibility for generating and growing demand for a firm's brands, products, and services in the marketplace in a manner that delivers superior value to both the firm and its customers. This is all the more important in today's technology-enabled, fast-paced, always-on and on-demand market environment where customers have increasingly high expectations of firms and firms in many established industries face new competitive threats from innovative and radically new business models. Moreover, due to these market conditions and new technologies, marketing has become an increasingly digital and technology-enabled field. Thus, the future of marketing looks very different. This course provides an in-depth introduction to contemporary marketing, with a focus on what matters for the future of marketing. Students will be taken through key stages of developing a value-creating marketing strategy and cover topics such as market analysis, consumer behaviour, digital marketing, customer value analysis, product development and innovation, social media marketing, and retail marketing. The course's ultimate aim is twofold. First, to instil in students 'marketing thinking', which emphasises a customer-centric view of business because delivering superior value to customers increases long-run firm value. Second, to equip students with future-oriented marketing knowledge that will prepare them as the business leaders of the future. The specific course objectives are: • Understand what marketing is and why it is a critically important part of any business • Appreciate changes that have taken place both in the marketplace (e.g. with consumer behaviour) and in marketing practice (e.g. due to technology and digital marketing), and what these changes imply for marketing strategizing) • Critically analyse a firm's marketing actions, identify problems, recommend feasible improvements, and develop a strategic marketing plan • Know fundamental principles of marketing, including segmentation, targeting, positioning, and customer value • Appreciate the various aspects of the marketing process (e.g. customer insights/research, product launches, innovation and product development, retail, digital, social media) and the key considerations for each one Relationship to your employment You play a key role in the marketing of your team, having drafted many publicly available reports and publications that are intended to market our operating unit and the broader Company A firm as a trusted and expert service provider. Examples This subject will assist you with the following: • drafting eminence and marketing material, including thought leadership, to position our team as leaders in regulatory and risk advisory services. • conducting market analysis on trends and initiatives brought forth by accounting firm A's competitors. • understanding the cost vs benefit of investing into market strategies and apply this to my own marketing initiatives at Company A. Organisational Behaviour Subject description: Leading individuals, teams and organisations is the central task of management and critical to performance, whether you are in a start-up, global corporation, public service or social enterprise. This significance is constantly growing as an increasingly complex and volatile economic and geo-political context calls for strong, responsible leadership. Yet, leadership is as difficult as it is critical, thanks to the complexities of human nature and the challenges that arise when people work together. We have designed this course to help you meet these challenges in three ways. It will help you: • understand what drives yourself - and others - to develop an effective, personal leadership style • apply and evaluate frameworks for managing individual, team, and organisational performance • reflect on these leadership frameworks and skills in the context of your own experience. These aims are immediately relevant for a lot of activities and assessments during the postgraduate degree, such as work in your study teams, group assignments, the entrepreneurship project, to name but a few. In short, the better you understand yourself, the team members around you, and the best ways of getting the most out of everyone, the more fruitful your year at business school will be. Beyond 'unlocking' value in the postgraduate degree itself, though, organisational behaviour will prepare you for your next management challenge, and many more after that. To prepare you for that journey, the course is structured around the organisational lifecycle from 'start-up' to 'grown-up' with a strong focus on your personal leadership development. The course does not attempt to give you a definitive set of tools and policies. There is seldom a single 'right' answer to the complex organisational questions that confront executives in their day-to-day work. There are, however, plenty of wrong answers. It is our aim to sharpen your sense for what works when. Relation to employment This subject is directly relevant to your role as a project manager, particularly in overseeing engagements, stakeholder management, ensuring team members are valued, respected and their opinions heard, and coaching junior staff to build the wider capabilities of the team. Examples This subject will assist you with the following: • managing project teams to ensure timely and high-quality client deliverables. • fostering a team culture of empathy and transparency. • coaching junior staff members to support their potential. • evaluating best practice for team management and where optimisation could occur. Strategy Subject description: Why are some organisations more successful than others? This is the fundamental question of strategy. This course will help students understand the origins and causes of variation in organisational performance. We examine strategy for the single-business organisation (competitive strategy) and the multi-business organisation (corporate strategy), recognising the range of criteria for defining 'success'. We will also cover some of the basics of global strategy and innovation. The course extends students' existing background and awareness of the problems involved in managing an organisation by providing readings, analytical tools and case discussion of fundamental strategy issues. Overall, the course aims to help students develop the following skills: • the ability to apply strategy theory and frameworks critically to the analysis and diagnosis of • strategy problems • an understanding of strategic options in a variety of contexts, including single-business, multi-business, non-business and global contexts • the capacity to formulate and defend arguments in support of strategy proposals, using theory and evidence Relation to employment Your role requires active involvement in strategy development and execution for my operating unit, and you have worked in the past with senior partners to develop go-to-market strategies in response to current market conditions and client requirements. As a manager, you are also required to create strategies for the execution of engagements and ensure the appropriate deliverables are prioritised in a timely manner. You respond to strategic challenges before and during projects on a regular basis Awareness of current market conditions will support your go-to-strategy to engage potential new clients. Pricing engagements appropriately based on current competition in the market and macroeconomic conditions. Be better informed and proactive in understanding public policy and key drivers of incoming regulation facing prospective clients, and their impact on clients' business decisions. Examples This subject will assist you with the following: • drafting eminence and marketing material, including quarterly updates and annual regulatory outlooks, to support regional strategy as part of your work • creating go-market and corporate strategies for our operating unit to drive short - to medium-term sales success for our business Financial Crises and Risk Management Subject description: The course will develop the analytical tools necessary to understand crisis prevention and management, and risk management. The properties and characteristics of risk management techniques will be analysed and related to corporate and sovereign default risk, hedging and trading strategies, regulations and assessing financial stability and systemic risk. Emphasis will be put on applying these techniques on problems emerging in the marketplace. Relation to employment This subject is directly related to your usual project roles advising financial institutions on compliance risks, stress testing, business continuity management and crisis preparedness. Examples This subject will assist you with the following • assisting financial with APRA's operational risk management requirements (CPS 230) to ensure ongoing compliance when standard becomes effective. • developing business continuity plans for clients to ensure operational resilience and preparedness during severe but plausible events. • managing risks associated with external service providers and developing contingencies in the event of disruption Governance and Ethics Subject description: Students at business school will one day run large organisations. When they do so, they will encounter difficult practical problems about the right thing to do: some of those are outlined on this page, and some of them haven't been thought of yet. But, whatever the problem, the way that these problems are addressed will affect many lives, and ultimately will affect the sort of society in which we live. In short, business life generates massive responsibilities; acquiring some tools that will help you to bear those responsibilities is probably a good idea. Accordingly, this course provides a formal forum in which practical ethical questions about organisational life can be analysed and debated: Ethics in organisations cannot be separated from governance. Relationship to your employment This subject is directly relevant to corporate governance, regulatory compliance, risk culture, and ethical risk management. It will support your ability to, for example, ensure financial institutions adhere to APRA's BEAR/FAR accountability regimes, ASIC conduct risk expectations, and ethical considerations in financial services. Examples This subject will assist you with the following: • advising financial firms on conduct risk frameworks to align with ASIC expectations. • developing whistleblower protection policies for clients to enhance transparency and ethical governance. • supporting banks in their compliance with APRA's CPS 511 to ensure ethical executive pay structures. • designing ethics training for financial institutions. • ensuring alignment with evolving ESG and governance regulations As well as paying the course fees, you have will incur the following costs in relation to undertaking the postgraduate degree: • airfares • transaction fees paid on course deposit • expected transaction fees on outstanding course balance

Relevant legislative provisions: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 section 8-1