Does having more than one job mean I pay more tax?

News from https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2022/07/17/ask-the-expert-tax-capital-gains/

Question 1. I work 30 hours a week in my job. I have an opportunity to pick up a second job, for about 10 to 15 hours a week but I’ve been told that the tax on my second job will be a lot higher. Is that correct?

This is a common misconception.

The Australian Taxation Office doesn’t care about how many jobs you have, or how many different s of income you have, it just need to know how much your total taxable income is.

The only truth to it is that the more income you earn, then yes, the more tax you pay.

As Australia has a progressive tax system, then the rate of tax for some of your income may be higher (see tax table below).

When you commence a job, you need to fill out a form that helps determine how much tax is taken out of your pay each cycle (depending on whether you get paid, weekly, fortnightly etc.).

Generally, within the form, you would tick a box to indicate that you are eligible for the tax-free threshold of $18,200, this applies to all Australian residents.

This then sets how much ‘Pay As You Go’ (PAYG) tax is deducted from pay each week/fortnight. The PAYG schedule is set by the ATO and must be followed by the employer.

For a second, subsequent job you would not tick the box about claiming the tax-free threshold as that has already been taken into account. Therefore, the PAYG rate would be higher and so it seems you are paying a higher rate of tax.

At the end of the financial year (June 30), when you or your accountant do your tax return, all of your income is added together to work out how much tax is payable, less the PAYG tax you have already paid.

Note: I do know a few people who don’t tick the tax-free threshold box even for their first and only job. Some people do that by accident and others do it deliberately as a way of ‘forced’ saving, knowing they will get a bigger refund come tax time because they have paid too much PAYG tax.

Another way of looking at it is to consider that PAYG tax is just you making regular payments to cover your end of your tax obligations. But regardless of how many jobs you have, all the income is added together, and tax paid as per the below table.

If you are interested, the ATO does have some PAYG calculators available.

Question 2. We have an investment property which we may need to sell at a loss. How does this affect tax if we make a loss?

There is no immediate impact on your overall (income) tax.

When you complete your annual income tax return there is a section that asks about capital gains and capital losses.

You record your capital loss in that section – if you have a capital gain you can immediately subtract the loss against the gain.

If the loss is bigger than the gain, or if you do not have any capital gains, you carry forward to the next year, if still no gain, keep carrying it forward every year until you (hopefully) do.

Carry-forward…

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