For doctors, dentists & practice owners
The decisions that shape a medical career deserve a clear answer before you make them.
First contract, first ABN, going out on your own, buying into a practice, selling one. Each of those is a tax and structure decision — and each one is easier to make well with the full picture in front of you
Benchwise is a partner-led tax and accounting practice in Melbourne, working with registrars, GPs, dentists, specialists and practice owners Australia-wide. Calls in the evening and on weekends, because that’s when you’re off shift. 普通话服务。
Before, not after
Partner-led
A Chartered Accountant handles your file
Medical first
Evenings & weekends
Where you are right now
A medical career has four expensive corners
Most of what we do sits at one of these four points. Find the one that sounds like this year, and you’ll see the questions we’d ask you.
Stage 01
Registrar or hospital doctor
Your first ABN income, and the first year nobody takes the tax out for you.
Locum shifts and a bit of private work look small until June, when the whole year’s tax arrives at once. This stage is mostly about habits: what you keep, what you set aside, and which year your study costs belong in.
What’s deductible once you’re not purely PAYG
And what genuinely isn’t, whatever the group chat says
Putting tax and super aside as you go
So the first bill isn’t a shock
Exam, college and self-education costs
Timing matters more than people expect
HELP debt against a rising income
What repayments do as your income steps up
Stage 02
Going contractor, or out on your own
The contract is the tax decision. Most people sign it, then ask.
Whether you invoice as a sole trader, a company or a trust changes your tax, your paperwork and what you can do later — and the way you’re engaged by the clinic shapes which of those options is even open to you. This is the single most common reason a doctor calls us.
Sole trader, company or trust
What each one actually changes — and what it costs to run
Personal services income rules
Whether they apply to you, and what follows if they do
GST, PAYG instalments, registrations
Sorted before the first invoice, not after
What the offer is actually worth
A contractor rate compared with the salary and benefits you’re leaving
Stage 03
Starting or buying into a practice
The year with the most moving parts and the fewest do-overs.
A buy-in is a purchase, a structure decision and an employment decision at the same time, usually with a settlement date already booked. We work backwards from that date so the entity, the funding and the agreements line up.
What you’re buying, and whose name it sits in
Goodwill, equipment, shares or units — they’re taxed differently
Service entities and payroll tax
The question every clinic is now being asked
Staff, contractors, super and workcover
Getting the arrangement right from day one
Taking money out of the practice
Wages, dividends, and Div 7A loans that need a plan
Stage 04
Established, and building outside the practice
Higher income, more entities, and an exit that’s closer than it feels.
By this point the return is the smallest part of the job. The work is keeping structures, property and records consistent year to year — so that when you sell, or move, or bring family in, nothing has to be reconstructed from memory.
Property held in the right name
With cost base records kept from settlement, not from the sale
Trusts, companies and SMSFs
Kept only where they still earn their keep
Income or assets overseas
Both countries’ documents read side by side
Selling or winding back
CGT position and concessions, checked years ahead
What we see most often
The five-minute question that became a five-figure problem
The ATO's share, already spent
Income arrives gross and sits in one account with everything else. The bill is never the surprise — the timing is.
A structure that no longer fits the work
Set up for how you practised three years ago, then carried through a change of role nobody told it about.
PSI rules discovered in year three
Rarely a problem on its own. What matters is whether it shaped the structure from the start or has to be worked around now.
Money out of the company, no plan
Drawings treated as a loan without anyone deciding to. Div 7A doesn't forget.
Deductions in the wrong entity
The expense was real. It was claimed by the entity that couldn't claim it.
No cost base records
Ten years of receipts nobody kept, all needed in one week, at settlement.
General information only, based on matters we commonly see. It doesn’t take account of your circumstances and isn’t tax, legal or financial advice. Some of these questions also need a lawyer — where that’s the case, we say so.
HOW IT WORKS
We explain. You decide. We handle the rest.
Step 1
Tell us what's changing
A short call, usually 15 minutes. What you’re being offered, or considering, and when it has to be decided by.
Step 2
We lay out the consequences
Tax, cash flow and structure, in plain language, with the fee agreed before any work starts.
Step 3
We do the work
Registrations, entities, returns and the ongoing compliance — handled at partner level.
Before you get in touch
Questions doctors ask us first
Should I be invoicing through a company or a trust?
It depends, and the honest answer can’t be written on a website. It turns on how you earn the income, who else is involved, what you already own and where you’re heading over the next few years — which is why two doctors on identical incomes can need different answers. The structure that serves a practice owner with staff and premises may do nothing at all for a contractor, and vice versa. We work through your actual position first, then show you what each option would change, so you’re choosing with the numbers in front of you rather than on what worked for a colleague.
Does personal services income apply to me, and can I be a personal services business?
This is the question behind most structure decisions in medicine, and it’s decided by how you earn — not by which entity sends the invoice. Where your income comes mainly from your own skill and time, the PSI rules can attribute it back to you personally regardless of the company or trust in between. Some doctors do satisfy one of the personal services business tests, and the answer can change as your work changes: new arrangements, more locations, staff, a different mix of clinics. We work out where you sit before anything is built around it, and we revisit it as your practice changes rather than assuming last year’s answer still holds.
How do fees work?
Fixed and agreed before work starts, so you know the cost before you commit. Initial calls to work out whether we’re the right fit aren’t charged.
Do you only work with doctors?
No. We work with business owners, established professionals and property investors too. Medicine is simply where we’ve gone deepest, and this page is written for it.
Something's changing this year?
Tell us what’s in front of you — a contract, a buy-in, a property, a letter from the ATO. We’ll tell you whether it’s something we handle, and what the sensible next step is. If it isn’t ours, we’ll say who it belongs to.
Prefer email? info@benchwise.com.au — we read it ourselves.
Evenings and weekends available · Melbourne based, Australia-wide online · 普通话服务