It might seem like a good idea to lodge your tax return as soon as the financial year ends – with costs of living rising you might be hoping for a refund, or you might just want to tick it off your to-do list for another 12 months. But the ATO has warned taxpayers that early July lodgers are twice as likely to make mistakes on their returns, and is encouraging taxpayers to take their time and get it right.
In 2024, over 140,000 people who lodged in the first two weeks of July had to lodge amendments, or had the ATO investigate and amend their returns to fix inaccuracies like income that hadn’t been declared properly.
Taxpayers can, of course, lodge their tax returns as early as 1 July, but the ATO actually recommends that tax returns be submitted later in July.
Lodging towards the end of July allows time for information from employers, banks, health funds and government agencies (eg Centrelink) to be automatically pre-filled in your tax return if you lodge your own return via myTax or use a registered tax agent. While some pre-filled data’s available from 1 July, most usually finalised by the end of July. Some data, like partnership or trust distributions, may be unavailable until even later. The ATO notes that early lodgers often make mistakes like not including interest from banks, dividend income, government agency income and health insurance details.
The ATO suggests that you take your time to properly prepare for lodging your returns while you wait for the relevant information to pre-fill. To prepare, you should:
You can check the “Pre-fill availability” of third-party information providers for pre-filling your tax return for 2024–2025 on the ATO website – links are provided to help you check for information from government agencies, health funds, financial institutions and companies. You should also check that your income statement from your employer/s (covering your year-to-date salary and wages, PAYG withholding tax and employer super contributions) has been marked “tax ready”, as well as that your pre-fill data is available in myTax before you go on to lodge.
Once it’s available, make sure you check that all the pre-filled information is complete and correct. Note that you can’t delete or remove pre-filled government benefit data for Allowance or Pension payments (eg Jobseeker, Age Pension, Disability Support Pension), as the ATO’s pre-fill service now provides greater certainty for benefit data. When accessing your pre-filled information, there’ll be a marker where the record is “high certainty data”. Gaps can arise where organisations may be delayed in providing information, the ATO hasn’t been able to match the data to your record, or information hasn’t passed all data quality checks. If you find errors in the information, you should contact the provider and make sure that corrections are sent through to the ATO.
Whether you lodge early in July or wait until later to ensure that you have all of your pre-filled data, the ATO understands that mistakes can sometimes happen. If you realise you've made a mistake after lodging your tax return, you can fix errors or omissions once the initial lodgement has been processed by going through the ATO online amendment process (accessible through myGov) or by speaking with your registered tax agent.
Source: www.ato.gov.au/media-centre/ato-warns-taxpayers-dont-lodge-yet