Workforce education news - Issue 7/2011

Tax can be a piece of cake

Taxpayers can now access enough of their personal information through the pre-filling service in e-tax to complete most of a basic tax return.

We have made this possible by encouraging data providers, such as employers and banks, to lodge their data as early as possible.

Having this much pre-filling data available so early in the lodgment season is quite an achievement. By law, employers are not required to lodge their payment summary information until 14 August, while financial institutions have until 31 October to lodge.

Pre-filling information is progressively available from 1 July and data is made available within a couple of days of when it is reported to the ATO. Here is a snapshot of the amount of data available for the pre-filling service:

Data type	Percentage of data available at 31 July 2011	Percentage of data available at 31 August 2011
Government payments (welfare)	100%	100%
Payment summaries	63%	97%
Interest	48%	99%
Dividends	84%	98%
Private health insurance policy information	25%	77%

With so much information available, why not give e-tax a go.

More information about e-tax and the pre-filling service is available on our website at: www.ato.gov.au/etax

Sections within For employees

• Contributing to your super - what you need to know
• Finding lost super is now easier
• Tax can be a piece of cake
• Free tax help
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