A few weeks into the new financial year and the ATO has already been busy crunching a few numbers on the state of play with tax return numbers.
One noticeable change from the same time a year ago is the number of current year individual returns lodged on paper. In 2016, nearly 15,000 returns had been completed on a paper form, but this year a mere 4,500 had been lodged the old fashioned way by July 18. The total for both paper and electronic returns to that date was about a million and a half (1,408,897 at COB).
Perhaps the surprising element in this fact is that any paper is involved, and yet even non-individual returns continue to put ink on paper to a small degree (646 returns to July 18, but it was 1,191 last year). The total non-individual returns lodged by July 18 were 17,205.
Self-preparers have so far made a small increase in number from a year ago, up by just over 142,000 taxpayers. The number of refunds issued to July 18 were 514,738, having a value of $1,588 million, with the ATO estimating an average tax refund of $3,084.
As for the ATO’s track record of answering the phone, show your clients the following fact — general taxpayer calls were answered 81% of the time in 5 minutes, but calls from tax practitioners were 91% of the time answered in 2 minutes.
For the tax practitioner telephone queue, the ATO’s call centre records show an average wait time of 27 seconds and an average handle time of 13 minutes.
The ATO also reminds practitioners that if you experience difficulties in the tax agent portal, the first step should be to check its troubleshooting page. “Problems that occur are identified on this page and updates on workarounds and resolutions are updated quickly and frequently,” the ATO says. “If practitioners continue to have issues they should contact the helpdesk on 13 72 86 Fast Key Code 3 3.”
How are those tax returns progressing? ATO updates its data How are those tax returns progressing? ATO updates its data How are those tax returns progressing? ATO updates its data
# [ATO], [data], [tax], [tax data], [tax time 2017]
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