Progress report 11 - Latest figures as at close of business 14 September 2011

Our performance since 1 July 2011

	Electronic individual returns lodged during July 2011	Electronic individual returns lodged during August 2011
Processed within 14 days	92%	94%
Processed within 15 days	94%

For individual electronic returns lodged in August we finalised 94% within 14 days in line with our service standard.

All aspects of processing are continuing in accordance with our plans and schedules.

Current year returns*

Returns received since 1 July 2011	Returns finalised since 1 July 2011	Number of refunds issued since 1 July 2011	Value of refunds issued since 1 July 2011
6,108,000	5,440,000**	4,792,000	$11.39 billion

Previous years returns*

Returns received since 1 July 2011	Returns finalised since 1 July 2011	Number of refunds issued since 1 July 2011	Value of refunds issued since 1 July 2011
563,000	730,000**	376,000	$2.1 billion

* As at 14 September 2011
** Include returns received prior to July 2011

The latest on processing

For the period 7 September to 14 September we received 586,000 returns including 535,000 2011 year returns. During the last week we issued 465,000 refunds with a value of $1.15 billion for 2011 year returns.

E-tax has continued to grow in popularity, with 1,734,067 lodgements received to date, an increase of 4.3% on last year.

A major feature of e-tax is our pre-filling service that allows taxpayers to download information from a range of providers including financial institutions, employers and Government agencies including Medicare. Last year 72% of e-tax lodgers chose to pre-fill, and the service continues to improve with more pre-filling information being made available earlier this year.

We will continue to provide regular updates throughout Tax Time.

Call centre performance and wait times

Since 1 July we have received 2.8 million calls and achieved service levels of:

• Tax practitioner calls - 94.07% of calls answered within two minutes, and
• General taxpayer calls -92.64% of calls answered within five minutes.

During this period the average wait time was 29 seconds for tax practitioner calls, and 1 minute 22 seconds for general taxpayer calls.

Why some returns may take longer

Some returns take longer than others to finalise, for example if:

• we require more information or need to cross check data with Centrelink or the Child Support Program (it can take up to three days to check information with another Government agency)
• it is a complex tax return and requires a large amount of manual checking by a tax officer, or
• it is identified as being potentially fraudulent or including overstated claims.

Errors in a tax return can also delay your refund. Some common errors include:

• forgetting to include your date of birth
• supplying incorrect bank account details
• forgetting to include any name change from a previous year's return, for example in the case of marriage, and
• forgetting to include interest from a bank account, or income from a previous job.

To check the progress of your tax return you can call our automated service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 13 28 65 for personal tax returns and 13 72 26 for business tax returns. Upon calling this service you will be asked to enter your Tax File Number so please have this ready before you call.

Fraudulent or over-claimed refunds

Since 1 July 2011 63,000 returns with total refunds of nearly $264 million believed to include overstated claims or to be potentially fraudulent and have been held for review. We use various risk models on our systems to identify these returns.

Of these returns 4,600 with claimed refunds in excess of $22 million have been identified as suspected identity crime.