Every year clients, friends and family sound me out on the latest ‘tax tip’ they have heard around the traps (or in most cases misheard). What I wanted to do is give people the answers to some of the myths that are around about tax.

This week I will blog about one tax tip every day. I have affectionately called it ‘Tax Tip Week’.

For those of you that have our iPhone app reading the blog can be done easily at any time.

Let’s start the week with a question I get a lot:

“Why do I pay HECS in my tax return when my employer withholds HECS and pays it for me?”

The simple explanation to this is that your employer doesn’t pay anything off your HECS debt. Forget what’s shown on your payslip. The extra amount withheld by your pay lady is just extra tax and isn’t split between tax, Hecs or any other type. Your HECS repayment is calculated in your tax return and the full amount of the withholding (on your payment summary) is a credit against your tax and HECS amounts.

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Paul Meissner – Director