dave99

Hiya, can anyone recommend a safe online tax company to use. HRBlock keeps cropping up in searches, has anyone had experience with them or know any others?

Mine should be simple but I have no clue when it comes to tax, but a lot of the online ones look a bit dodgey to me and I would really appreciate it if someone could recommend a safe one, thanks

Wol

If yours is a simple tax affair you are better off doing it yourself: just download the ETax program from the ATO and it guides you through the whole thing by asking questions. At the end you print it out (it gives your tax estimate) and lodge with a couple of clicks.

If you pay someone to do it you still have to dig out the same data and you are still responsible for the return anyway.

spouse of scouse

Hi Dave, I usually do my own tax returns but for reasons I won't go into here, there was a three year period recently when I didn't complete any at all. I had, of course, paid PAYE tax and while I knew I didn't owe the ATO any money, I was still really nervous about their possible reaction to receiving 3 years worth of returns at once.

I took a punt on an online tax service, was honest about my situation, and let them deal with it. I received a good refund and no questions were asked about the previous year's non-lodgements. I used a company called Etax, they emailed me with a couple of questions about my information, so communication was good, and I think it took about 2 weeks to get my refund from the ATO.

This is the only dealings I've had with the company so I can't say that they're fantastic for everyone, but I can honestly tell you that they were great for me. Best of luck.

goldchoccycoin

The new MyTax from the ATO is specifically designed for people with simple tax returns. Have a read at ato.gov.au

dave99

I will admit to tax baffling me a bit, I remember a few years ago I looked at the forms and was stumped at the first question. It seemed to be written in leagalise but it might as well have been chinese to me!

dave99

Thanks for this, etax have a nice looking website with your recommendation I think I will give them a shot. You never know with online based stuff if its a risk, but getting a recommendation makes me a lot more comfortable, thanks

Wol

You didn't accidentally click on the Cantonese version did you

spouse of scouse

No worries - just to add, I looked them up again and there's a couple of sites with similar names, the one I used was etax.com.au

teza

Etax is actually program by ATO, that link provided seems to have nothing to do with ATO. To download the correct program please go to https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/L...-online/e-tax/

teza

P.s. For future reference, none of the government agencies (ATO, Medicare, centrelink etc) use .com.au, they are all .gov.au for legit sites...

spouse of scouse

Correct Teza, it's not a government site but the OP wasn't looking for that, he was looking for an online tax accountant to do his return for him, which is what I was helping him with

Wol

The link is to a US site - nothing to do with Australia!

paulry

The site is an Aussie one. It's just the clicky that's malformed. Add .au after .com and you'll be directed to an Aussie site.

dave99

I have gone ahead and lodged with etax.com.au it seemed pretty straight forward even for me. The only catch I noticed is they try to encourage you to have their fee collected direct from your tax return. If you do this it costs an additional $30. They put a big button on the page to encourage you to do this, but if you look further down there's a pay by card option you can tick and this avoids the $30 fee, making the total cost of the return only $55 and not $55+30

I am happy that its done, I have been worrying about this damn thing for weeks and getting into an office for an appointment is very difficult, they only seem to open during business hours.

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated

spouse of scouse

Bloody sales pitches! (re the button)

Good luck with it Dave, let us know how you got on with it (processing time, if your refund/liability was what you expected etc). Doing something like a tax return online with an unknown company can be scary, considering the amount of personal and financial info we have to divulge, so it's good to know if people have success or concerns with these companies.

I reckon you'll be confident enough to tackle your own next year