A new survey from online services marketplace ServiceSeeking.com.au, released just in time for the tax season, shows that nearly 80% of Australian taxpayers outsource their tax return. The data also revealed that 51% are happy with the amount of tax they pay and the cheapest month for your clients to have their return completed is July — which is interesting as this is also the peak demand period.
ServiceSeeking.com.au, which connects consumers with various and diverse service providers, including bookkeeping and accounting, collected responses from more than 4,000 of its users. With 49% of respondents admitting they loathe completing the annual tax return, even those who feel more indifferent to the task seem happy to outsource the job to their accountant. The 80% who do so even admit, according to ServiceSeeking, that they “love their accountant”.
Chief executive Jeremy Levitt says it is refreshing to see the old stereotype surrounding accountants getting a facelift. “Rightly or wrongly, accountants have often been labelled boring geeks without people skills,” he says. “So it’s great to see they are breaking through that mould and showing off their personalities to capture and grow their business.”
More than half of all jobs listed for an accountant on ServiceSeeking.com.au are posted between the peak tax months of July to September. An interesting feature, according to Levitt, is that charge-out rates provided for accounting work during that period are typically less, with July being the best month from a client’s point of view. Average charge-out rates for accounting services provided during August and September are slightly higher, before returning to pre-tax time averages.
“The interesting thing here is that the quoted price actually falls for July through September, which runs counter to most normal markets; high demand usually pushes prices up,” says Levitt.
And with only 22% of taxpayers completing their own paperwork, those accountants with solid people skills and great attention to detail have a lot of work coming their way right about now. Levitt says 47% of respondents are lucky enough to find the love of their tax lives right away, while 53% have shopped around — sometimes up to six times — to find the person who understands their receipts and deductions best.
According to the survey, it seems we’re generally a nation of people willing to get their paperwork in on time, with 61% of those surveyed having their return completed in the first two months of the new financial year, climbing to 82% by the end of the October deadline for individuals.
Some other interesting details include:
51% are happy with the rate of tax they payonly 16% have been audited in the pastless than 10% have been fined by the ATO.
For more details of the survey, see here.
#[accounting], [tax returns], [tax time 2016], [taxpayers]
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