After you lodge

Processing times

We aim to process most electronically lodged current year tax returns within 12 business days.

If you can't lodge electronically, lodging a paper tax return can take up to 50 days for us to process manually. Find out how to prevent delays in processing returns.

Provide this information to your clients to manage their expectations about when they will receive their notice of assessment.

For more information, see our service commitment.

Checking the status of a tax return

We will keep you informed about the progress of your client’s tax returns, and any delays, so your clients will know to expect their notice of assessment.

We keep you informed about the progress of your client’s tax returns through:

• Tax return processing status
• Online services for agents
• Notice of assessment.

Tax return processing status

How we will keep you informed where there is a delay in processing, and what occurs when the status of a client's tax return won't appear as 'lodged'.

Weekly status reports

If there are processing delays with your client’s electronically-lodged tax returns, we'll email you a weekly report. The report will provide details of what may be causing the delay.

Your clients will first appear on the Tax Return Status report 26 days after lodgment. The report includes all clients with delayed tax returns, up to one year from date of lodgment.

Management of 'lodged' status delay for specific client types

A known system issue exists where in some cases the status of your client's tax return won't appear as 'lodged' in Online services for agents for up to 28 days.

This issue occurs despite the fact that you receive a lodgment reference number (LRN) from the practitioner lodgment service.

While the overall number of tax returns affected are low, practices with a large number of specific client groups can experience a higher overall impact.

The 'lodged' status may be delayed when:

• specific client groups, including high wealth individual, partnerships, trusts or consolidated groups, enter a substituted accounting period (SAP)
• agents lodge early using a previous year’s income tax return
• a client account, role or a client-to-agent link issue occurs.

We have a process in place to:

1. identify income tax lodgments relating to client types that should display a 'lodged' status in Online services for agents
2. update these lodgments to show a ‘lodged’ status within 28 days.

What you can do after 28 days

If the 'lodged' status hasn't appeared after 28 days, you can either:

• phone the Tax or BAS agent phone service and quote the LRN
• submit a Tax practitioner assistance form with all details requested for each client affected.

Online services for agents

You can view the lodgment and progress of your client’s tax returns in Online services for agents.

At Client summary select:

1. Lodgment
2. Income tax
3. History.

Your client's tax return Outcome will only be visible online after the tax return has been processed and the assessment amounts are dispersed to your client’s accounts.

Even when the issue date and assessment amount become visible, they are both subject to review and change until the notice of assessment has issued.

As we process your client’s tax return, the Status and Outcome in Online services for agents may differ from the details provided in the tax return status report.

For more information about Online services for agents status reasons, go to Checking the progress of a client's tax return.

Watch: Checking the progress of a return.

Notice of assessment

You can view a client's notice of assessment in Online services for agents.

At Client summary select:

1. Lodgment
2. Income tax
3. History.

You can also view the client's notice of assessment in Communication history.

For more information, see Your notice of assessment.

Other electronic communication to clients

If your client has a myGov account linked to the ATO, they will receive their notice of assessment, tax receipts and most communication from us electronically via their myGov Inbox.

Communications sent to your clients via their myGov Inbox will not be sent to you in paper form. You can view those communications in Communication history in Online services for agents.

You can choose where our digital communications are sent using Communication preferences in Online services for agents.