How to Lodge Your Australian Tax Return:

The return you lodge from July 2026 covers the 2025-26 financial year, so it uses 2025-26 rates. The 16 percent to 15 percent bracket cut you may have heard about starts from 1 July 2026, which means it affects the tax coming out of your pay right now, but not the return you are lodging for last year. Do not expect it to show up as a bigger refund this time around.

A practical tip the ATO repeats every year and most people ignore: do not lodge in the first fortnight of July. Employers, banks, and health funds have until late July to finalise the data that pre-fills your return. Lodge before your income statement shows as Tax ready and you risk using incomplete numbers, which can mean amending your return later. Mid August is the sweet spot for most people: pre-fill is complete, and the queue has calmed down.

If you had a HECS or HELP debt during the year, remember the repayment is calculated when you lodge, based on your full-year repayment income. If your employer did not withhold enough, that can eat into an expected refund. Check where you stand with our HECS repayment calculator.

Every deduction you claim needs evidence, and the ATO's data matching gets sharper every year. The standard is written evidence, usually a receipt or invoice showing the supplier, amount, date, and what was purchased. A bank statement line on its own is generally not enough for most work expense claims.

You must keep records for five years from the date you lodge. That does not mean a shoebox. Photograph receipts when you get them and store them in a dedicated folder, the ATO's free myDeductions tool inside the ATO app, or your accounting software. Thermal paper receipts fade to blank within a year or two, so a photo is actually safer than the original.

Two claims have special rules worth knowing. Car claims under the cents per kilometre method need a record of how you calculated your kilometres, even though you do not need receipts. Working from home claims under the fixed rate method require a record of your actual hours worked from home across the whole year, such as a diary or timesheet. An estimate made in June does not satisfy the requirement.

Once processed, the ATO issues a notice of assessment to your myGov inbox. This is the official record of your taxable income, the tax assessed, and your refund or amount owing. Most myTax lodgements are processed within two weeks.

If you owe money, the due date is generally 21 November if you self-lodged, or later if you used an agent. If you cannot pay in full by the due date, do not ignore it. The ATO offers payment plans that you can set up yourself online for debts up to $200,000, and entering one early avoids the situation compounding with interest.

Keep the notice of assessment itself. Lenders ask for the last two when you apply for a mortgage, and it is the fastest way to prove your income as a sole trader. If you spot an error after lodging, you can amend a return through myGov rather than lodging again from scratch.