Types of income
Income from outside Australia that may count in the income test includes money from all of the following:
- investments
- pensions
- employment
- self employment
- business and real estate.
We use the amount before tax. You can’t deduct any bank charges, tax or exchange rate conversion fees.
It doesn’t matter if the payments came from outside Australia or through an Australian agent.
Currency
We change all income from outside Australia to Australian dollars for the income test. The exchange rate changes each month.
We treat income from outside Australia differently for family assistance payments. Read about foreign income and family assistance.
Pensions
We treat most pensions from outside Australia as income.
Exceptions
Those we don’t count in your income test include:
- some restitution payments and blocked pensions from outside Australia that are exempt income
- some pensions, or components, affected by an international social security agreement.
If your partner dies
For 14 weeks after their death, your income test won’t include:
- any survivor’s or widow’s pension you get
- any increase in your own payment.
Investment income
When calculating the income from financial investments held outside Australia, we apply the deeming rules. The deeming rules use the gross value of your investments (after conversion to Australian currency) to calculate the amount of deemed income we’ll include in the income test.
Business or real estate income
Your assessable business or real estate income from outside Australia is the gross income you receive, minus the deductions we allow.
Allowable deductions are costs you had to pay to earn the income. For example, with rental income you can deduct costs that relate to the property.
Read about: