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What are government payments, pensions and allowances?

Australian Government payments, pensions and allowances are income amounts that you receive from a government agency. Commonly these payments are from Services Australia or the Department of Veteran's affairs (DVA).

Depending on the payment type you receive, these payments might be either:

• taxable – meaning you pay tax on the amounts and must declare the income in your tax return
• tax-free – meaning you don't pay tax on the amounts, but you may need to declare them in your tax return so we can work out your eligibility for tax offsets and other benefits.

If you are unsure of the type of payment you receive, contact the government agency to check.

If you lodge your tax return online we pre-fill most of these payments, pensions and allowances in your tax return. You will need to check the pre-fill information and manually include any amounts that have not pre-filled in your tax return.

Taxable pensions, payments and allowances

You must include taxable Australian Government pensions, payments and allowances in your tax return.

Taxable government payments, pensions and allowances include:

• age pension
• carer payment
• Austudy payment
• JobSeeker payment
• Youth allowance
• Defence Force income support allowance (DFISA) where the pension, payment or allowance that it relates to is taxable
• veteran payment
• invalidity service pension, if you are age-pension age or over
• disability support pension, if you are age-pension age or over
• income support supplement
• parenting payment (partnered)
• disaster recovery allowance (but not in relation to 2019–20 bushfires).

This is not an exhaustive list, for a full list of Australian Government payments, pensions and allowances, see:

• Australian Government allowances and payments
• Australian Government pensions and allowances.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/income-deductions-offsets-and-records/income-you-must-declare/government-payments-and-allowances[/URL]