• danwritesbooks
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    4 months ago

    First year doing tax on my own. Is it worth just lodging my own? Is it hard to do? I don’t have anything fancy or complicated to worry about.

    • Baku
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      4 months ago

      Meh. I found it easy enough and lodged my first one when I was 16. If you’ve given your employer and bank and anyone else who gives you money your TFN, they’ll prefill pretty much everything. But I can’t remember if you sell your books or not, if you do, that probably complicates things a bit. I don’t know how that works. But I’ve found the ATO to be pretty friendly when it comes to asking questions. Their website has a lot of general guidance, otherwise I’ve found them to be pretty helpful when you call

      Also, they seem pretty chill if you unintentionally fuck something up. If they notice it first, they’ll probably just send you a letter saying you fucked up and telling you what to do next, which will usually be either giving them back any money they overpaid, or entering a payment plan to do so. If you ignore that then they will get feisty, but as long as you didn’t mean to make the mistake and we’re not talking about 40 million bucks, their first response won’t be to send the AFP to kick in your door

    • just_kitten
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      4 months ago

      It’s incredibly easy to lodge on your own. The one time I used an accountant was because my tax status changed halfway through the FY from a WHM to an Australian resident and there was some BS that needed to be worked out with the ATO.

      Every single other time I’ve done it myself, granted I have never been self-employed as I understand that can sometimes be complicated (I can’t remember if you have some income from self employment).