What you need to do
We'll automatically pre-fill your return with all the available information reported to us by organisations, such as banks, employers, government agencies and private health insurers. This information is reported to us from 1 July, with most of it available by mid-August.
All you have to do is:
- review the pre-filled information by checking it against your records, and
- enter any other missing details to complete your tax return.
You must make sure all the information on your tax return is correct before you lodge it, including all the pre-filled information.
Why you may want to wait until mid-August to lodge using myTax
Historically, most information is reported to us and available for pre-filling by mid- August. All of your information may be available before this, but sometimes it takes a little longer.
For example, you may find that:
- some of your payment summaries have been pre-filled, but not all of them
- interest from one financial institution has been pre-filled but interest from another one hasn’t been.
You can complete myTax from 1 July 2017 if you prefer not to wait for all your information to be pre-filled, but you will need all your records and statements to enter information yourself to complete and lodge your return.
What information can we pre-fill?
We will automatically pre-fill for you all the information provided to us at the time you do your myTax return, including:
- Australian Government allowances, pensions and payments
- salary, wages, foreign employment income and other amounts that are shown on payment summaries by employers
- Australian superannuation income streams, annuity payments and lump sums
- interest from financial institutions including ATO imposed interest
- public company dividends including exploration credits
- managed fund distributions
- employee share scheme interests
- business and personal services income amounts that are shown on a payment summary including, voluntary agreements, labour hire and other specified payments
- contractor payments information reported by businesses in the building and construction industry
- details of share disposals and transfers of property as a reminder about possible capital gains tax events
- amounts received through a partnership distribution
- private health insurance policy details
- spouse details, if you indicated you had a spouse on 30 June 2016 in the previous year's tax return
- deductions that you have uploaded to your tax return via the myDeductions tool.
What if you don't agree with the pre-filled information?
If you have checked the pre-filled information against your own records or statements and it doesn't match, you can change or delete the pre-filled information in myTax.
If you do this, it is important to resolve any discrepancies with the third-party provider before you lodge; they may need to send new or amended information to us to ensure our records are accurate.