Tax lodgements 2017

[marty998]

Submitted my return on Thursday after getting Vanguard tax statements earlier in the week.

I'm due about $8000 (being one of those evil negative gearers!)

MyTax was a little easier to use this time, I am no longer finding it objectionable and wanting to go back to eTax.

How do all of you go about it? Self or accountant?

[deborah]

I discovered in June that I may never need to do a tax return again. This is a source of considerable happiness.

[Rowellen]

I do my own but technically I am a tax agent. I lodged mine just after the VAS statement came in. I'm only expecting about 900 back. I used my tax. I thought it was fine.

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

I have always used an accountant thinking that the tax environment is too complicated and previously it has been worth it with always getting a refund of several thousands of dollars. But the accountancy cost seemed to increase year on year to $ 1900 last year when we finally dumped the accountant. We have no investment properties or negative gearing.

I am a salary earner but have deductibles like education expenses, conferences, office and phone expenses etc
Also we have several ETFs.

Do you guys find the my tax portal gives you the same ability to do deductions? I once did my own tax return for a rental we had inside a trust and had to pay double tax.

Is there any way of doing a practice assessment to see what you might be due without actually lodging it. I mean if we looked like we were due substantially less than usual with the accountant I might go crawling back. I'm sure they weren't doing anything dodgy but sometimes it's all in the interpretation.

[Rowellen]

My tax gives an estimate of the expected refund or payment. And yes it can do all the deductions. $1900 sounds very expensive for a basic tax return. Any refund or payment is based on how much tax you have pre-paid compared to how much you are required to pay. Theoretically an accountant can't get you a bigger refund than you can get for yourself. The difference is they may know of deductions that you weren't aware of.

[mjr]

Personal taxes by myself with e/MyTax.  New SMSF via accountant.

[FFA]

DIY with mytax, agreed it is much easier these days, or maybe I have been making inroads in simplifying my affairs or a bit of both!

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

My tax gives an estimate of the expected refund or payment. And yes it can do all the deductions. $1900 sounds very expensive for a basic tax return. Any refund or payment is based on how much tax you have pre-paid compared to how much you are required to pay. Theoretically an accountant can't get you a bigger refund than you can get for yourself. The difference is they may know of deductions that you weren't aware of.

Fair enough. But are you able to do the process on my tax and just not submit it if you don't like the answer?

[Rowellen]

My tax gives an estimate of the expected refund or payment. And yes it can do all the deductions. $1900 sounds very expensive for a basic tax return. Any refund or payment is based on how much tax you have pre-paid compared to how much you are required to pay. Theoretically an accountant can't get you a bigger refund than you can get for yourself. The difference is they may know of deductions that you weren't aware of.

Fair enough. But are you able to do the process on my tax and just not submit it if you don't like the answer?

Yes.

[marty998]

Do you guys find the my tax portal gives you the same ability to do deductions? I once did my own tax return for a rental we had inside a trust and had to pay double tax.

This does not make sense. Didn't you do a separate Trust tax return? Did you distribute all earnings or did the Trustee get assessed at the top marginal rate?

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

Do you guys find the my tax portal gives you the same ability to do deductions? I once did my own tax return for a rental we had inside a trust and had to pay double tax.

This does not make sense. Didn't you do a separate Trust tax return? Did you distribute all earnings or did the Trustee get assessed at the top marginal rate?

We did a separate tax return for the rental as income for the trust. The trust paid tax at over 30%. Then the beneficiary was distributed what was left and paid tax at the marginal tax rate. i.e. paying tax twice. Granted this was not the ato, it was another country but no tax department is in the business of telling you ' hey you have overpaid - you don't have to do that'.

When I got the accountant to do this the following year only the beneficiary had to pay tax.

[Wadiman]

Accountant - I don't want to have to do detailed research to understand the deductions I'm eligible for or changes in deduction eligibility from prior year.

Cost is not too bad - about $400 which includes an investment property and ex-super investments.

[Ms Terror]

I've only ever done it myself using e-tax and now myTax. But I've started buying ETFs in the last year and now I'm getting confused. I have a few dumb questions that I'd like to ask and without knowing a better place I'll ask them here:

-I have a few left over single share holdings before I discovered ETFs, which get pre-filled. Dumb question: this is ok to just leave as is with the franking credit etc if it's all in a dividend reinvestment plan?

-Other dumb question, the ETFs are VAS and VGS, which Vanguard send the statements. Is it good to just fill in all the sections which they give a number for in Section A (in the Income from managed funds section of mytax) even if my plan is to buy and hold? Ie. there are capital gains in the VGS statement that I'm assuming I still include despite only buying the ETFs this financial year and planning to hold forever.

Appreciate any replies in advance and apologies for the n00b questions!

[deborah]

You are correct, although, the ATO could prefill the ETFs as well. The EFTs will get capital gains/losses when they buy and sell shares (they might do this to keep the relative weight of each share in the EFT right).

Prefilling only occurs when they have sent the information to the ATO before you fill out your tax return, so it might not all be there. Also, if you haven't supplied your tax file number to the company, it won't be prefilled. So it is always wise to check the amounts in the prefill against your statements.

[mustachepungoeshere]

How do all of you go about it? Self or accountant?

Accountant, until I can convince you to do it for me. ;)

[deborah]

How do all of you go about it? Self or accountant?

Accountant, until I can convince you to do it for me. ;)

As I think he IS an accountant, does that make any difference ;)

[marty998]

How do all of you go about it? Self or accountant?

Accountant, until I can convince you to do it for me. ;)

As I think he IS an accountant, does that make any difference ;)

It does matter actually. I am a qualified accountant but I am not a registered tax agent, so I cannot legally provide advice to be relied upon, nor charge for my services.

If anyone would life to gift me bottles of port.... that's an entirely different story.

:)

[Fresh Bread]

Accountant, because doing tax makes me a not nice person to be around.
https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows-money-really-can-buy-you-happiness-if-you-buy-free-time

Also, it's about $350 and they saved me about $1k the first year in things I'd missed (embarrassingly). And I just got some advice this year that may save me a LOT of CGT. 

[marty998]

Care to share Freshwater? Was this regarding your rental that you just sold?

[onewayfamily]

We do ours through MyTax.

Since FIRE'ing last year I think they'll be pretty easy from now on - I just note down major expenses on the investment properties etc. throughout the year, then at tax time I do a search in my email inbox for 'invoice', 'receipt' and the like to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then it's just a matter of going through the list of investments/bank account etc. to get all of the interest/profits - they usually make this pretty easy these days with a simple summary.

[Nudelkopf]

It's the last year i can claim the HECS/HELP benefit (which reduces my compulsory repayment by about $3800). I'm sad this benefit is getting axed after this year. Hecs has been indexed at 1.5% the last 2 years, so I'm really keen to not pay off my hecs!

But i did my tax a few weeks ago & submitted my paperwork today for the hecs/help benefit.

[chasingthegoodlife]

I used an accountant this year, the first time in a long time I haven't done it myself. I was interested to see whether there were any deductions I had been  missing, and there was at least one good one I hadn't been claiming so I was happy I went. Not sure if I will go back to doing it myself next year. I quite enjoyed eTax but not a fan of the new system yet.

I'd love to find an accountant that is interested in giving me advice about planning and structure for future tax years. Yes, my situation is not that complex with one IP and some ETFs, but I feel that a really good accountant would (for example) ask me if I had thought about salary sacrificing to super instead of investing in EFTs with after tax funds. I have reasons for not doing this but they would not know this on first meeting me, and it's the sort of easy optimisation advice that they could just throw out there while they are collecting my receipts. My parents have an excellent accountant that has really helped them set things up in the most advantageous way pre and post retirement and I'd love to have someone similar on my team.

Now awaiting my refund with anticipation!

[marty998]

Got my refund last week (tax office is processing them in 7 days now). Stuck it in an offset account for the time being.

Waiting on September work bonus and going to blow the lot on more shares :)

[Rowellen]

I used an accountant this year, the first time in a long time I haven't done it myself. I was interested to see whether there were any deductions I had been  missing, and there was at least one good one I hadn't been claiming so I was happy I went. Not sure if I will go back to doing it myself next year. I quite enjoyed eTax but not a fan of the new system yet.

I'd love to find an accountant that is interested in giving me advice about planning and structure for future tax years. Yes, my situation is not that complex with one IP and some ETFs, but I feel that a really good accountant would (for example) ask me if I had thought about salary sacrificing to super instead of investing in EFTs with after tax funds. I have reasons for not doing this but they would not know this on first meeting me, and it's the sort of easy optimisation advice that they could just throw out there while they are collecting my receipts. My parents have an excellent accountant that has really helped them set things up in the most advantageous way pre and post retirement and I'd love to have someone similar on my team.

Now awaiting my refund with anticipation!

Changes to the licencing laws means that most accountants will be unwilling to give such advice for fear of being fined thousands of dollars. The few that have been licenced now have to go through the BS of preparing a statement of advice and all the crap that goes with that. What should be a simple "you can save tax by making deductible super contributions" is now "tell me your life story plus some, I'll do hours of unnecessary research and spend more hours preparing a useless document full of legal crap and charge you your life savings in fees".

[chasingthegoodlife]

Rowellen, thank you. That is useful for me to understand, and I guess I see why is has to be that way. Shame though. Until I am earning the sort if dollars that justify specialist advice I will have to do my own research

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

I'd love to find an accountant that is interested in giving me advice about planning and structure for future tax years. Yes, my situation is not that complex with one IP and some ETFs, but I feel that a really good accountant would (for example) ask me if I had thought about salary sacrificing to super instead of investing in EFTs with after tax funds. I have reasons for not doing this but they would not know this on first meeting me, and it's the sort of easy optimisation advice that they could just throw out there while they are collecting my receipts. My parents have an excellent accountant that has really helped them set things up in the most advantageous way pre and post retirement and I'd love to have someone similar on my team.

Yes once we asked the accountant this (should we contribute to my partner's super) and got charged $250 with the reply 'no'. Later after doing our own research the answer was a resounding yes.
I have yet to meet or hear spoken of a financial advisor who doesn't steer their clients towards investment vehicles that line their own pockets at the detriment of the client.

But like Rowellen I can't help thinking there is some sort of situation that can allow you to structure things so that as a wage earner you are not hammered so much. I mean how do all those businesses and super rich get away with it? I have some had some good advice from forum members on trusts and companies and the like but you still have to approach someone for help with this.

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

Sorry I wrongly attributed the quote to Rowellen when it was chasing the good life. To which Rowellen gave a sensible reply

[limeandpepper]

I submitted my tax return a few days ago and it didn't take me long. The estimated assessment issue date is next week.

Hoping next year won't be too complicated, it will be the first time I get a bit of income from a rental property.

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

Happy with tax assessment this year.
We are due an extra 6000 vs last year as we shifted from some interest bearing investments to ETFs and the franking credits were quite generous to my low income spouse.

[Eucalyptus]

It's the last year i can claim the HECS/HELP benefit (which reduces my compulsory repayment by about $3800). I'm sad this benefit is getting axed after this year. Hecs has been indexed at 1.5% the last 2 years, so I'm really keen to not pay off my hecs!

But i did my tax a few weeks ago & submitted my paperwork today for the hecs/help benefit.

Agree, I'm spewing that they are cancelling the HECS/HELP benefit! My HECS Debt is still up around $26k (will be a few k shorter after my work payments for the year roll through and the last benefit).

I'm doing my tax by myself, using mytax. Seems really straight forward, better than last year. No weird investment properties or anything, and I'm an employee, so my tax return is fairly straight forward with only a few deductions.

[Trouble]

...I have yet to meet or hear spoken of a financial advisor who doesn't steer their clients towards investment vehicles that line their own pockets at the detriment of the client. ...

Hey! Don't tar us all with that same brush! I am a financial adviser and don't steer clients towards investment vehicles for my profit. I know so many other advisers that work for the client, not for their own profit. Maybe it's just the financial planning circles I run in. Some of us love index funds like Vanguard over complex multi-manager portfolios.

I know a bunch of advisers are dodgy buggers, and the industry has a crap reputation due to the actions of advisers in the past, but you'd be surprised just how many advisers are out there slogging to make their client's futures brighter. I promise you plenty are doing right by their clients.

[Wadiman]

Hi all -

What's the drill with the tax statements for VTS and VEU - should the payment amounts be pre-filled? 

This is the first time i will be needing to declare income etc on these so have just found out that Vanguard only provides US tax statements for these funds and these are obviously out-of-sync with our tax year.

[mjr]

You won't get pre-fill info for VTS, I assume it's the same for VEU.

[kiwiozearlyretirement]

Hi Trouble,

I apologise for tarring you with the same brush. I'm sure independent advisors exist. In fact super guide believes there is 87 in the whole of Australia!

https://www.superguide.com.au/retirement-planning/truly-independent-financial-advisers-in-australia

A colleague tested his advisor by asking what he should be investing in. The advisor says 'your mortgage'. So he passed the test.

Another colleague is perfectly happy to pay the 1% AUM fee. Saying 'well he has to earn a living like anyone else'. Fair enough. I have also heard the argument that AUM fees are an incentive for the advisor to work harder to grow the funds. Maybe but I would certainly feel resentful that my $1000 for $100000 AUM would grow to $10000 for $1000000 essentially the same advice.

What do you think of the article's definition of independent?

[alsoknownasDean]

I did mine a few weeks ago. I was waiting for some paperwork (I sold some VAS during the year and didn't receive the annual tax summary).

Had to pay another $170, although I view it as going towards my HECS (which should be all gone by this time next year).

[15s]

Hi Kiwi,

The requirement for being a "independent adviser" in Australia is very stringent.
I have a privately owned AFSL, charge fee for service only to assist with superannuation and have no relationships in place with any product providers that would influence where we write the business.
Nor do we get any percentage kickbacks or overrides.
We use the lowest cost super platform we have access to and use indexed funds wherever possible.

Even with all of this, we can't call ourselves "Independent" as we receive commission (which is disclosed in the Statement of Advice we present) from the insurance companies so we would have to rebate 100% of the commission from the insurance products and then charge a fee to the client to cover our time and from past experience, people prefer the commission option than having to come up with funds from their cash flow to pay us.

Hi Trouble,

I apologise for tarring you with the same brush. I'm sure independent advisors exist. In fact super guide believes there is 87 in the whole of Australia!

https://www.superguide.com.au/retirement-planning/truly-independent-financial-advisers-in-australia

A colleague tested his advisor by asking what he should be investing in. The advisor says 'your mortgage'. So he passed the test.

Another colleague is perfectly happy to pay the 1% AUM fee. Saying 'well he has to earn a living like anyone else'. Fair enough. I have also heard the argument that AUM fees are an incentive for the advisor to work harder to grow the funds. Maybe but I would certainly feel resentful that my $1000 for $100000 AUM would grow to $10000 for $1000000 essentially the same advice.

What do you think of the article's definition of independent?

[Phryne]

Finished my husband's yesterday, with a lazy 9 hours to spare! Did mine the week before, which I had been avoiding because CGT.  Happy days, I only owe the ATO $70!

[Grogounet]

I have always used an accountant thinking that the tax environment is too complicated and previously it has been worth it with always getting a refund of several thousands of dollars. But the accountancy cost seemed to increase year on year to $ 1900 last year when we finally dumped the accountant. We have no investment properties or negative gearing.

I am a salary earner but have deductibles like education expenses, conferences, office and phone expenses etc
Also we have several ETFs.

Do you guys find the my tax portal gives you the same ability to do deductions? I once did my own tax return for a rental we had inside a trust and had to pay double tax.

Is there any way of doing a practice assessment to see what you might be due without actually lodging it. I mean if we looked like we were due substantially less than usual with the accountant I might go crawling back. I'm sure they weren't doing anything dodgy but sometimes it's all in the interpretation.

$1 900?? How so? Mine wanted $400 both 2 ($200 each)
I'm doing it myself

[happy]

Just done mine, with the help of a new local accountant. Generally mine's straightforward, but with the addition of 3 rentals coming on line on my new property, subdivision, deed of partition etc etc, I definitely need  help.
Refund this year $1600 or so. Talk about tax creep - my deductions are pretty much the same each year, rising I guess approx with COL, my pay usually goes up 2.5%, and my tax return has crept down from 2-3K to less than 2k a year for a few years now :(

[marty998]

Just done mine, with the help of a new local accountant. Generally mine's straightforward, but with the addition of 3 rentals coming on line on my new property, subdivision, deed of partition etc etc, I definitely need  help.
Refund this year $1600 or so. Talk about tax creep - my deductions are pretty much the same each year, rising I guess approx with COL, my pay usually goes up 2.5%, and my tax return has crept down from 2-3K to less than 2k a year for a few years now :(

I keep getting hit with the extra private health insurance rebate adjustment. That % keeps falling and contributes to my refund being lower than it otherwise would be. Couple with the steady rises in the Medicare Levy and you've got bracket creep increasing effective marginal tax rates.

All contribute to feeling your tax burden is increasing. I guess somebody has to pay off the debt and deficit.

[happy]

yeh, why not me ;)