Guide to lodging your tax return

Financial documents or records

You will need:

• a payment summary from each employer or payer you received income from during the financial year, including Centrelink
• statements from financial institutions such as banks and building societies to work out how much interest you have received
• dividend statements from companies that have paid you dividends
• a statement of earnings if you have units in a unit trust or a managed investment fund
• the buy and sell advices from your investment advisor or stockbroker if you bought or sold any shares
• receipts if you are claiming any deductions.

Most of these documents are posted to you - store them somewhere safe. Not only do you need them to do your tax return, but after you lodge your return you must keep them as evidence of your income and expenses.

Retaining your records The Australian tax system works by self-assessment. This means we accept the details you put on your tax return and process it and will issue your assessment based on your tax return. However, we may review your tax return to confirm that the information is correct and all your assessable income is included. The ATO has some time to review your tax return and issue an amended assessment if a review shows inaccuracies that change the assessment. The standard review period is two years, but for some taxpayers it is four years. You should retain your records until your review period has ended. Some records may need to be kept longer.

If you want to use electronic funds transfer (EFT) to receive your refund, you will also need your bank account details.

When completing your tax return, take care to enter each amount at the right place because there may be significant differences in the way different items are taxed.

For more information on record keeping, refer to Keeping your tax records.

Missing or incorrect payment summaries

You must make all reasonable attempts to contact your employer to get a copy of your payment summary. If you can't get a payment summary, you can ask your employer to sign a letter stating the income and tax withheld throughout the income year.

If your employer has provided electronic details to us you may be able to access this information using the pre-filling service in e-tax.

If all attempts to get your payment summary are unsuccessful, you can complete a statutory declaration and use this in place of the missing payment summary. To complete this declaration, you may need to refer to your bank records or payslips to estimate your income and tax withheld.

If you believe your payment summary is incorrect, ask your employer for an amended payment summary showing the correct details.

	Your employer may have incorrectly included compulsory super guarantee amounts in your reportable employer super contribution amount on your payment summary. This amount affects what benefits and tax offsets you can claim and what liabilities you must pay. For more information on what to do if you think your reportable employer super contribution amount is incorrect, refer to Incorrect amounts at reportable employer super contributions on payment summaries.
	For a copy of the statutory declaration form, refer to Statutory declaration (for PAYG payment summary forms). To estimate your income for the financial year, refer to our online Gross pay estimator.
	Lodging your tax return - home

Sections within Information you need to prepare your tax return

• Financial documents or records
• Tax file number
• Pre-filling service in e-tax