At tax time

Tax time is from July to October each year.

A financial year is from 1 July to 30 June each year.

Most people need to lodge a tax return or tell the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) if they don’t need to. Some customers will need to confirm their income online with us too. To prepare and lodge a tax return online, you need a tax file number.

When you need to lodge

The best time to lodge your tax return is from late July when most of your information has been pre-filled into your return. This helps you to avoid mistakes. All you need to do is check the pre-filled information is correct and add any income or other information that’s missing.

If you lodge before your information has pre-filled, you’ll need to find, calculate and add the information about your financial situation yourself.

Your Centrelink payment summary information should pre-fill in ATO’s myTax by late July. Some emergency and disaster payments are taxable but won’t prefill in myTax or show on your Centrelink payment summary. If you got any of these payments, you need to add these to your tax return yourself. Find out the payments that don’t show on your Centrelink payment summary.

If you only got Family Tax Benefit (FTB) or Child Care Subsidy (CCS) payments you don’t need to include them on your tax return as they’re non-taxable. If you only got FTB or CCS or both you won’t get a Centrelink payment summary.

You should check that all your pre-filled information is right before you lodge your tax return. If you don’t, you may have to amend your tax return later and lodge it again.

The information you provide about your income, and any dependents you have, helps when you do your tax return.

It can help with any of the following:

• working out if you had enough tax deducted or withheld from your income and any government payments, including Centrelink
• balancing your FTB and CCS to make sure you got the right amount
• calculating and confirming your child support assessment.

Each year is different so your outcome may change. Getting a tax refund, FTB or CCS top up, or FTB supplement payment can change depending on your family’s income and circumstances.

If you’re not eligible for Medicare for all or part of the financial year and need to claim the Medicare levy exemption at tax time, you’ll need a Medicare Entitlement Statement. You can apply for this from 1 July. This will be for the previous financial year. We can’t accept early application unless you’re leaving Australia.

To lodge your tax return online, you’ll need to link the ATO to your myGov account. You can set this up any time.

Follow the instructions on the myGov website to create and use a myGov account.

If you need help to do your tax return, find out how the ATO can help and support you to lodge your tax return on their website.

When you don’t need to lodge

If you don’t need to lodge a tax return you need to tell the ATO. It’s best to wait until late July when most of your information has been pre-filled for you.

If you got FTB or CCS, you need to confirm your income with us. You may need to do this even if you had no income or you’ve already told the ATO you don’t need to lodge. This is so we can balance your FTB and balance your CCS. You can do this using ‘Advise non-lodgement of tax return’ in your Centrelink online account linked to myGov, in the myGov app or the Express Plus Centrelink mobile app.

If you paid or received child support and completed a non-lodgment advice with the ATO you need to confirm your income for Child Support. You should do this as soon as possible after the end of the financial year. You can do this using your Child Support online account through myGov, the Express Plus Child Support mobile app or the myGov app. You can also call us on the Child Support Enquiry Line.

How to protect yourself online at tax time

Scams and identity threats often increase during tax time.

When you’re doing your tax and waiting for your outcome, make sure you’re only dealing with genuine websites. To safely access your myGov account and linked services, use the official myGov app or enter my.gov.au into your browser to sign in. You can also use the Express Plus Centrelink mobile app.

Be wary of emails, phone calls, texts and social media messages claiming to be from the ATO, myGov or another government department. If in doubt, don’t respond.

Learn more about how scams work and how to protect yourself against scams and identity theft.

Find out about the latest tax scam alerts on the ATO website.