Australian tax · EN / 中文

Settle the status first, then talk about tax

In Australia, tax residency is the master switch — rates, Medicare levy, property withholding and your departing super payment all hang off that one answer. And the most common mistake in the explainers is presenting the decision as a flowchart, which it is not.

● Current basis: 2026–27 financial year

Tax residency checker All four statutory tests run in parallel, with a confidence read and the single change that would flip your verdict — plus the five consequences that follow from the status. Open → Take-home pay calculator PAYG withholding, Medicare levy and net pay across the resident, foreign resident and working holiday schedules. In progress

Why this exists

The gap

The flowchart error

The four statutory tests are alternatives — passing any one is enough. Most explainers present them as a sequence starting with 183 days, which produces wrong answers in both directions.

Two kinds of abode, conflated

The 183-day test turns on usual place of abode; the domicile test turns on permanent place of abode. They are different legal concepts, and merging them into one question gets both lanes wrong.

Verdicts without sensitivity

What actually helps is knowing how far you are from the verdict flipping. An article cannot show that; a tool can. Every input is perturbed one at a time to find what would change the answer.

Limits stated plainly

The resides and domicile tests are findings of fact with no bright line. This site explains the structure and where to look. It is not tax advice and does not replace a registered tax agent.