Pre-filling 2009
Pre-filling 2009
In addition to the increased range of data made available in the Pre-filling report 2008, in 2009 we focused on:
- filling in the gaps
- consolidating the existing data available
- addressing issues you raised with us through feedback and at consultative forums.
The Pre-filling report 2009 contained the following changes:
- Paper individual non-business payment summaries (that is, not lodged electronically) were pre-filled for the first time.
- The family tax benefit (FTB) claim status information was removed as a result of the 2008 Federal Budget decision to move administration of FTB payments to the Family Assistance Office (FAO).
- A new reminder was added to the 'Medicare levy related items and private health insurance policy details' section about the special conditions affecting private health insurance cover for 2008-09.
- Private health insurance rebate details were displayed under the 'Tax offsets' section.
- New details and reminders were added to the 'Important information' section (where relevant to clients), and included
- rental property address details from the 2007-08 rental property schedules
- pre-lodgment advisory letters
- schedule of work-related expenses required with lodgment
- forestry managed investment scheme income reminder
- the entrepreneurs tax offset reminder
- the remaining balance of a landcare and water facility tax offset
- pay as you go (PAYG) income tax instalments
- the accumulative low rate cap
- income averaging for primary producers and special professionals
- net farm management account deposits and/or withdrawals.
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For more information about the pre-filling reports for other income years, refer to:
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The following table outlines the availability of information in the Pre-filling report 2009.
Taxpayer details
The Pre-filling report 2009 displays your client's personal details. The following information will come from our records:
- name
- gender
- Australian residency (as at the report creation date)
- postal and residential address
- phone number
- date of birth.
Important information
The Pre-filling report 2009 may display informative messages about your client's circumstances that you should consider when completing their tax return.
Rental income
Messages may be based on:
- current financial year transactions, such as the sale or disposal of a rental property that may have capital gains tax (CGT) implications
- 2008 income tax return details (if you completed a valid rental schedule) that may need to be reported again, such as
- rental income first declared
- address of the rental property.
Investment income
Messages may be based on:
- current financial year transactions, such as share class rulings related to investment shares that may have a CGT implication
- 2008 income tax return details that may need to be reported again, such as
- dividend income
- partnership/trust income
- foreign entities
- forestry managed investment scheme income
- foreign source income.
Work related expenses schedule
This message is displayed for taxpayers who have been sent either of the following:
- a pre-lodgment advisory letter
- a letter advising a work-related expense schedule must be lodged with their income tax return.
Prior year data
Messages are based on 2008 income tax return details that may need to be reported again or have a balance carried forward, such as:
- sources of income, including
- personal services income
- net income or loss from a business
- tax offsets, including
- entrepreneur's tax offset reminders
- landcare and water facility tax offset remaining balances.
Income/tax estimation
These messages include accounting data that will help you estimate your client's refund or debt, such as:
- Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) balances
- PAYG instalments
- income averaging
- accumulative low rate cap
- net farm management deposits or withdrawals.
PAYG payment summaries
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display information from all original and amended PAYG payment summaries from employers and super funds.
PAYG payment summary - individual non-business
The report will display details for:
- item 1 - Salary or wages
- item 2 - Allowances, earnings, tips, director's fees etc
- item 3 - Employer lump sum payments
- item 5 - Australian Government allowances and payments
- item 10 - Total reportable fringe benefits amounts
- item 24 - Other income.
PAYG payment summary - employment termination payment
The report will display details for item 4 - Employment termination payments.
PAYG payment summary - superannuation income stream
The report will display details for:
- item 7 - Australian annuities and superannuation income streams
- item T4 - Australian superannuation income stream.
PAYG payment summary - superannuation lump sum
The report will display details for item 8 - Australian superannuation lump sum payments.
PAYG payment summary - personal services attributed income
The report will display details for item 9 - Attributed personal services income.
PAYG payment summary - voluntary agreement and PAYG payment summary - labour hire and other specified payments
The report will display details as information only. Check this information with your client and declare it at the appropriate item on the tax return.
Government payments
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display information from:
- Centrelink
- Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA)
- Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).
The report will display details for:
- item 5 - Australian Government allowances and payments
- item 6 - Australian Government pensions and allowances
- item T9 - Zone and overseas rebate.
Emergency payments are taxable payments that are not mapped to a label. These payments may be declared at label 5 or 24 depending on the taxpayer's circumstances.
You will be able to view:
- taxable payments, including pensions and allowances
- tax exempt payments that can be used to calculate some tax offsets.
Interest income and expenses
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display details for item 11 - Gross interest.
You will be able to view details about:
- interest-bearing accounts, including savings accounts, term deposits and fixed interest securities
- sole and joint accounts (as an individual) - for example
- husband and wife joint accounts will be displayed
- business partnership accounts will not be displayed.
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ATO interest amounts are no longer displayed in the Pre-filling report 2009 because they were not accurate. For more information, see Known issues.
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Dividend income
Dividend income details from most listed public corporations will be provided.
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display details for item 12 - Dividends.
You will be able to view details of:
- investment accounts that are Issuer or Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) sponsored
- sole and joint accounts (as an individual) - for example
- husband and wife joint accounts will be displayed
- business partnership accounts will not be displayed.
Managed funds distributions
A large number of managed funds will provide distribution income details.
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display details for:
- item 13 - Partnerships and trusts
- item 18 - Capital gains
- item 18 - Carry forward losses on 2007-08 income tax return
- item 20 - Foreign source income.
You will be able to view details of:
- a list of managed fund accounts
- sole and joint investments (as an individual) - for example
- husband and wife joint investments will be displayed
- business partnership investments will not be displayed
- net capital losses carried forward, as declared on your client's 2008 tax return.
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We are aware of discrepancies with managed fund data. For more information, see Known issues.
Use your client's distribution statements to complete other details, such as national rental affordability tax offset, capital gains, capital losses and foreign loss quarantining
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Deductions
Where the total deduction declared for items D1 to D15 was less than $300, the Pre-filling report 2009 will show details from your client's 2008 income tax return, for example, from:
- item D3 - Work-related clothing, laundry and dry-cleaning expenses
- item D5 - Other work related expenses
- item D8 - Gifts or donations.
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ATO interest amounts are no longer displayed in the 2009 and 2008 pre-filling reports because they were not accurate. For more information, see Known issues.
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Medicare related items
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display information from:
- Medicare Australia
- private health insurance funds
- us.
The report will display details for:
- item T10 - 20% tax offset on net medical expenses over the threshold amount (Medicare benefit tax statement)
- your client's 2008 income tax return - those being
- their spouse's details
- their number of dependants for item M1 - Medicare levy exemption and item M2 - Medicare levy surcharge.
Medicare benefit tax statement
The Medicare benefit tax statement data in the Pre-filling report 2009 is no longer available. This is because Medicare Australia can only provide information to us for the current year.
Your client can register to receive this information directly from Medicare:
- through the online services section of the Medicare Australia website (for the current and previous income year only) - for more information, visit www.humanservices.gov.au
- by phoning Medicare Australia on 13 20 11
- by visiting their nearest Medicare Australia office.
Private health insurance
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display details for:
- item PHI - private health insurance policy details
- item T5 - private health insurance rebate details.
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Private health insurance cover
Special conditions apply for the 2008-09 income year. Your client will be treated as having had private hospital cover for the whole period of 1 July 2008 to 31 December 2008 if they had private hospital cover:
- at any time between 1 July 2008 and 31 December 2008
- on 1 January 2009.
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Baby bonus
The Pre-filling report 2009 will display details from your client's 2008 tax return for item T7 - Ongoing baby bonus claim.
You will be able to view details of the:
- claim type - eligible or transferee
- base year
- base year taxable income and gross tax on base year taxable income
- child's name, date of birth and event date
- spouse's details - if the taxpayer is the transferee.
Family tax benefit claim status
From 1 July 2009, we can no longer accept family tax benefit claims. To claim the family tax benefit, you need to apply to the FAO by lodging online at www.familyassist.gov.au
Known issues for 2009
If you have noticed instances where the interest from non-formal trust accounts, such as children's bank accounts, are being matched to the trustee (parent), the following information may help you.
How it occurs
Non-formal trust accounts with entity type 'I' (for individuals) are included for the pre-filling service. Regardless of whether the parent TFN is attached to the account or not, if the parent name forms part of the account name, the record may be matched to the parent name. The provision of this income allows you to work out if the income needs to be declared in your client's income tax return.
What we are doing
For discrepancy matching purposes, non-formal trust accounts with the following words are excluded:
- '<Trustee name> ATF <beneficiary name>' if single trustee
- '<Trustee name and Trustee name> ITF <beneficiary name>' where multiple trustees.
Therefore no letters should issue to trustees of children's bank accounts where these names are used. We understand there may be occasions where some of these accounts may be identified through discrepancy matching processes but these instances should be very limited. Where this occurs there are procedures and guidelines in place to help staff in correctly finalising these cases.
Use the following information if your client's pre-filling report is showing an amount of investment income that belongs to an associated/linked non-individual entity of the client - for example, a super or trust fund.
How it occurs
This normally occurs if the entity's investment account has been established incorrectly. The interest or dividend income from these accounts will be incorrectly mapped to the individual client's record in our systems if their linked entity account has been established with either of the following:
- the individual's personal TFN quoted
- an entity type 'I', that is for an individual account.
What you should do
To prevent these records showing on future reports, ask your client to contact the financial institution to ensure the correct:
- TFN is quoted on the account
- entity type is listed on the account; for example, the correct entity type for a formal trust account is 'T' and for super accounts is 'S'.
This will not change what appears in the report unless the information provider sends us replacement information.
ATO interest amounts are no longer displayed in the Pre-filling report 2009 because they were not accurate.
In the 2009 and 2008 reports, ATO interest was a static component with the data extracted only once, around 14 July, after the end of the relevant financial year. This meant that if an activity statement was amended or lodged after 14 July, the pre-filling report would not include any adjustments made to the interest charges or remissions and was different to the 'Year to date interest summary report'.
What you should do
You can access information about your client's ATO interest for the 2009 year via the 'Client accounts' option in the portal.
Use the following information if the pre-filling report appears to be showing duplicate payment summaries.
How it occurs
This usually occurs when an employer has lodged an amended or subsequent payment summary but not indicated so. When this happens, the amendment is processed in our system as another original payment summary. This means both the original and amended payment summaries appear.
If lodged correctly, the amended payment summary will do either of the following:
- replace the original payment summary on the pre-filling report
- appear as an amended payment summary on the pre-filling report - this occurs where an amended payment summary is lodged on paper and the original payment summary was lodged electronically.
The correct action for employers to take when lodging amended payment summaries:
- in paper is to place an 'X' in the amendment box near the top of the form
- electronically is to place an 'A' in the amendment indicator field within the electronic report.
What you should do
If you referred back to the payment summaries your client received from their employer and you are still unsure which is the correct one, your client will need to check with their employer.
Your client's pre-filled managed fund data may be different to the statement they received from their managed fund.
How it occurs
Some discrepancies have been identified between the information fund administrators have sent to their clients and the information reported to us for pre-filling.
After discussing the issue with a number of agents through consultative forums, your response was that even if this data is incorrect, you would prefer to see it in the pre-filling report. This would prompt you to closely check your clients' statements.
What you should do
You should use the information from your client's distribution statement if there is a discrepancy between the information shown on the Pre-filling report 2009 and their statement. Contact the managed fund if you have any questions.
Discrepancies between the information sent to your clients and the information reported to us for pre-filling should be resolved with the data provider before you lodge your clients return.
If you are unable to resolve the discrepancy, you can contact us by:
- using 'Portal mail' - our preferred method of contact. To use Portal mail
- select 'Mail' in the navigation bar on the left side of the screen
- select 'Income tax' as the mail topic
- select 'Pre-filling' as the heading
- phoning us on 13 72 86 Fast Key Code 2 1 4.
Provide as much detail as possible to help us investigate your issue.
Last Modified: Thursday, 14 June 2012
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