Your notice of assessment

What is your notice of assessment?

The notice of assessment we send you is an itemised account of the amount of tax you owe on your taxable income. It also contains other details that are not part of the assessment, such as the amount of credit for tax you have already paid throughout the income year.

When you receive your notice of assessment, you should make sure that everything is correct.

We changed the way your notice of assessment (NOA) for income tax transactions looks to make it easier to read. You can see samples of the new look and old notices of assessment in Notice of assessment for income tax.

Generally, unless you are using electronic funds transfer (EFT), the bottom section of your notice of assessment will be either your refund cheque or, if you owe tax, your payment advice.

In some cases, we will send you a statement of account with your notice of assessment. If we do, we will attach your refund cheque or your payment advice to your statement of account.

We will send you a statement of account with your notice of assessment when your account balance is different to the outcome of your assessment. This can happen when:

• you incurred a penalty or general interest charge
• we credited interest amounts to you
• we offset credits to other tax debts (or debts you have with other government agencies)
• you have an account opening balance that is not zero
• you lodged returns for multiple financial years on the same day.

Under the law, we have some time during which we can review your tax return. During this time, we may increase or decrease the amount of tax payable (or refundable) as shown on your initial notice of assessment. This review period is normally two years but in certain circumstances it can be four years (see Self-assessment and the taxpayer).