Get more Tax Back! Medicare Exemption

If your country is not a part of the Medicare reciprocal health care agreement with Australia read this.

Medicare Exempt? You could get more tax back!

What is a Medicare health levy? When you earn over $20896 the tax office will charge you what is referred to as a Medicare levy, this covers the cost of your health care in Australia.

Reciprocal Health Care Agreements with Australia

Australia has Reciprocal Health Agreements (RHCA) with a number of countries including Belgium, Finland, Italy, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. If you are from a country that has a Reciprocal Agreement with Australia you are entitled to some subsidised health services within the Australian Healthcare System. To find out more information about Reciprocal Health Agreements and access to Medicare, please visit Medicare Australia. If you are applying for a 457 subclass visa, you will still need to take out private health insurance.

To be eligible for the Australian Working Holiday Visa, applicants must be:

• Aged between 18 and 30 (inclusive) and without dependent children.
• Eligible passports holders from the following 27 countries with at least one year until renewal on their passport:

•  Argentina
•  Bangladesh
•  Belgium
•  Canada
•  Chile
•  Cyprus
•  Denmark
•  Estonia
•  Finland
•  France
•  Germany
• Hong Kong SAR
•  Indonesia
•  Ireland
•  Italy
•  Japan
•  Malta
•  Netherlands
•  Norway
•  South Korea
•  Poland
•  Sweden
• Taiwan
•  Thailand
•  Turkey
•  United Kingdom
•  United States

How to get my tax refund?
If your country is not part of the reciprocal health care agreement with Australia then you should be eligible, if you are from a company not on this list then it’s likely you can claim you tax back.

Application form inclusions:

• Completed application form
• Include your visa confirmation email from immigration – multiple visas please make sure you include all of them.
• Certified copy of your passport (photo page and all Australian arrival stamps). Take a photo copy of the relevant pages and bring the passport and the copy to a police station, library, local council or our Shop and ask for JP to certify the copies.

Post the information to:

Levy Exemption Certification Unit
Department of Human Services
GPO Box 9822
Hobart TAS 7001

This process will takes around 12 weeks give or take.