About pre-filling

Pre-filling for accuracy

The pre-filling service allows you to cross-check information provided by your clients with information we have obtained from various organisations.

We provide information about your clients' income and expenses as reported by these organisations.

We also have other information you can use to complete your clients' tax returns, including data from previous years.

Accessing pre-filled data

The 2024 pre-filling information is available in the pre-filling report through both:

• Online services for agents
• practitioner lodgment service (PLS) if you are using Standard Business ReportingExternal Link (SBR)-enabled software.

Note: PLS will return the same data as the Online services for agents pre-filling report with some exceptions. PLS includes myDeductions.

You can generally access pre-fill information shortly after we receive it. You can also access pre-filling reports from 2009 to the current income year.

You can view and print pre-fill information online by accessing the pre-filling report using the secure Online services for agents system under Reports and forms.

Timing of pre-filled information

Information providers, such as employers, financial institutions, health funds and other government agencies must report specific information to us by certain statutory dates, for example:

• PAYG payment summary information must be submitted by 14 August.
• Generally Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporters must make a finalisation declaration by 14 July each year, except  
  • if the employer has 20 or more employees, the finalisation due date for closely held payees is 30 September each year
  • if the employer has 19 or fewer employees and those employees are only closely held payees, the finalisation due date for closely held payees will be the payee's income tax return due date
  • if the employer has 19 or fewer employees and they are a mixture of both closely held payees and arms-length employees, the finalisation due date is  
    • 30 September each year for closely held payees
    • 14 July each year for arm's length employees.
• Annual investment income report information must be submitted by 31 October.

We ask information providers to:

• provide information to us as close to 1 July as practicable
• lodge their information electronically.

For more details of when data is available, see Pre-fill availability.

The pre-filling report

Don't rely solely on pre-filled information. The information provided may be incomplete because of:

• timing – an organisation has not supplied data yet or our processing hasn't been completed
• matching – we couldn't match the data to your client
• validation – the data didn't pass all processing checks.

The pre-filling report can be:

• viewed online
• viewed in a spreadsheet, where you can add or amend data as required
• imported directly into your tax management software if it is part of your software capability.

You can:

• review pre-filled data
• amend pre-filled data if necessary (information providers must send us updated data if there has been an error)
• add any missing income details.

For more information see Pre-filling reports.

Printing the pre-filling report

You can enable the printing of background colours and images so the report will print as it displays on screen, including the coloured headings:

• In Internet Explorer 9.0 and later  
  • select the Tools button in Internet Explorer > Print
  • go to Page setup
  • check the boxes Print background colours and Images and Enable shrink-to-fit.
• In Microsoft Edge  
  • At the top of the page, select Settings and more > Print
  • Select More settings > Scale (%) > Fit to printable area
  • Click Print
• In Mozilla Firefox 8.0 and later  
  • select the Open menu in Firefox > Print
  • go to Page setup
  • select the tab Format & options. Check the box Print background (colours and images) and Shrink to fit page width.
• In Chrome 91 and later  
  • click File > Print
  • in the window that appears, change your preferred print settings
  • click Print.

If you have difficulties with the View and print online option, check the browser settings on your computer. The report opens in a new browser window, known as a pop-up. Many browsers are set to block pop-ups.

For more information see the Online services for agents user guide.