Tax planner for locums

The planner takes your gross income from recorded shifts, deducts your configured expenses, and works out the tax you should expect to owe across the resident brackets for the financial year you choose. It runs the figures for both a sole trader and a Pty Ltd company side by side, so you can see how each structure lands on the same income.

Because Australian locums self-invoice every shift at the agreed rate, the planner treats your contractor income as taxed in your own hands. It updates in real time as you log shifts, and you can view the result as an annualised projection or as a year-to-date running total. The annualisation uses the date span of your shifts, so a sparse roster does not over-project.

For a sole trader running under their TFN and ABN, the planner calculates:

• Income tax: applied in the ATO resident brackets above the tax-free threshold, at the marginal rates for the selected financial year, with the low income tax offset applied.
• Medicare levy: charged at 2 percent of taxable income, with the usual shade-in for lower incomes near the threshold.
• Medicare levy surcharge: an extra charge for higher earners without an appropriate level of private hospital cover. The planner can flag this as a possible additional reserve based on your private-cover setting.

Your deductible expense rate and any fixed annual expenses are removed before the taxable income is worked out.

If you set your business structure to a company, the planner models the company side using the base-rate company tax rate (the lower rate that applies to companies under the aggregated turnover threshold with limited passive income), falling back to the full company rate otherwise. Profit retained in the company is taxed at the company rate; amounts you draw as wages are taxed in your personal brackets and carry a Super Guarantee obligation; dividends carry franking credits for the company tax already paid.

Seeing sole trader and Pty Ltd next to each other is a comparison aid, not a recommendation. Choosing or changing a structure is a decision for your accountant, who weighs setup cost, asset protection, and your wider circumstances.

Three things shape a locum's tax beyond the income tax tables, and each has its own surface in Sessional:

• Personal Services Income (PSI): most locum income is mainly a reward for your personal skills and effort. When more than half the income from an engagement is for your labour, the PSI rules can apply and may limit deductions or attribute company or trust income back to you. Run the PSI diagnostic to see whether the results test and the unrelated-clients, employment, and business-premises tests are likely in play, or try the public PSI self-assessment first.
• GST and BAS: most clinical services delivered by a recognised health professional are GST-free, so that income does not count toward the GST registration threshold. Non-clinical supplies such as medico-legal reports, expert-witness work, and cosmetic procedures are generally taxable and do count. Once your taxable turnover reaches the registration threshold you must register, lodge a BAS, and remit GST. See the BAS guide.
• Super: personal concessional contributions reduce your taxable income, up to the concessional cap (which also counts any Super Guarantee paid for you). The super tracker keeps you under the cap.

Tune the model from your finance profile:

• Deductible expense rate: a percentage of gross income treated as allowable deductions. Set it to match your typical claim level, informed by your real expense log.
• Additional annual expenses: a fixed dollar amount for costs that do not scale with income, such as accountancy fees or college memberships.
• Monthly super contribution: the planner annualises this and treats it as a deductible concessional contribution within the cap.
• GST registration and private health cover: toggles that switch on the GST estimate and the Medicare levy surcharge check.

This is a single-source forecast. The following are real and can move your bill, so set extra aside if they apply:

• PAYG instalments: once your tax bill passes the ATO threshold you are usually entered into quarterly PAYG instalments, so your first full-year bill and your first instalment can land close together.
• Study and training loan repayments (HELP, HECS, VET, SFSS): a compulsory repayment is added to your tax once your repayment income passes the annual threshold, rising on a sliding scale, and settles through your return.
• Division 293, excess concessional contributions, and income from other sources such as property, shares, external trusts, interest, or wages paid outside the platform.

The full tax planner is available on the Plus and Pro plans. For a quick public estimate without an account, use the locum tax calculator.