Meaning & use
assessable income
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountabletechnicalfinancelegal
Income that a tax authority counts as subject to tax, including wages, business profits, and some other payments.
Grammar: Used as an uncountable noun phrase; say 'assessable income is...' not 'assessable incomes are...'.
Patterns
- assessable income for tax purposes
- assessable income from employment
Your salary and any bonuses you receive are usually part of your assessable income.
The tax office sent a letter explaining which payments count as assessable income.
For a small business, assessable income includes money earned from sales and services.
Common combinations
- assessable income for tax purposes
- Rental payments from tenants are assessable income for tax purposes.
- assessable income from employment
- The form asks you to list all assessable income from employment.
- derive assessable income
- If you derive assessable income from overseas, you may need to declare it.
- assessable income and deductions
- The accountant compared assessable income and deductions to work out the tax bill.
Synonyms and how they differ
- taxable income
- Very close in meaning, but 'taxable income' often means income after deductions, while 'assessable income' is the broader amount before deductions.
- gross income
- This means total income before deductions; it is similar but not always identical to assessable income under tax law.
Word family
- assess verb
- To calculate or decide the amount of something, such as tax.
- assessment noun
- The official process of calculating how much tax someone must pay.
- assessor noun
- A person whose job is to calculate or judge the value or amount of something.
Commonly confused: assessable income or taxable income?
assessable income vs taxable income
People often use these terms as if they are the same. In many tax systems, taxable income is what remains after subtracting allowable deductions from assessable income.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'assessable income' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 0 correctly uses 'assessable income' as an uncountable noun phrase meaning income subject to tax. Option 1 confuses it with 'savings' or 'assets'. Option 2 treats it as a personal quality. Option 3 uses it as a verb, which is wrong because it is a noun phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “assessable income”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.