Tips for getting 2023 tax returns prepared

The team at DFK Everalls always want to prepare your tax return as quickly and efficiently for you as possible. Here are our top tips for helping us to help you:

When to send in your tax information:

As early as possible please!
But, please try to make sure you have all the information necessary before you send it in (rather than sending things in bits & pieces). Please talk to your accountant if you have any queries about what information we do and don’t need.
Please wait until you have all the information for your whole group so that we can prepare all the returns together to make sure there are no inconsistencies.
We try to prepare returns on a “first come – first served” basis, but note
- we can’t prepare everyone’s return in July & August!
- Sometimes we have to juggle with other requirements such as client deadlines for getting accounts to auditors and banks; as well as other tax deadlines eg for Super, Payroll Tax, BASs and FBT Returns.

The tax return lodgement dates that you may need to be aware of are:
- 31 October 2023 – Tax returns for all individuals and entities where self-preparing or if one or more prior year tax returns were outstanding as at 30 June 2023 (unless ATO has since revised lodgement date).
- 31 January 2024 – Large and medium taxpayers whose gross revenue is more than $10M pa.
- 31 March 2024 – Tax returns for individuals and trusts whose latest return resulted in a tax liability of $20,000 or more (excluding large and medium trusts). Tax returns for entities with total income in the 2022 year of more than $2M.
- 15 May 2024 – Tax returns for all remaining individuals and trusts if not required earlier. The ATO usually gives an automatic extension to 5 June 2024 but any tax payable must be paid at time of lodgement rather than when they issue the Notice of Assessment.

How to send in your tax information:

Please let us know when you have all your information ready.
You can provide your tax information by:
- Preferably, uploading documents to our Client Document Portal (safer than email). You are, of course, welcome to make an appointment to see us to bring in and go through your documents. We always love to see you and it is especially helpful if there is something new or different this year. Otherwise, you can also post or email in documents if you prefer.
- If your tax information is relatively simple, then one document and/or cover letter per person (per financial year) is fine. Otherwise, separate documents for separate items may be more convenient e.g. income vs rental property info vs work related deductions vs donations. Please make sure all documents are titled correctly with name, financial year and category.
- Please note our portal happily accepts word & pdf documents and excel spreadsheets. Unfortunately, it cannot accept JPEG files.

Once we have received your information we’ll log it in, have a look and prepare an electronic Engagement letter with fee proposal. This gets sent to you via email so please keep an eye out for it in the following few days. Please approve or contact us immediately with any queries. For fees over $1,000 we require a 50% deposit to be paid before we can start work. An invoice will be sent via email so please review and pay ASAP so we can get started.

Completion and lodgement of your tax returns:

We try to work on turnaround times of approximately 8 weeks (6-10 weeks depending on complexity and speed of getting queries resolved).
We’ll let you know if we have any queries but otherwise, once your returns are completed we will let you know; and we can organise an appointment to present the tax returns to you; or we can upload them to the Client Document Portal so that you can sign the electronically and/or let us know if you have any queries.
Once signed, we will lodge them with the Tax Office for you.
The ATO is supposed to process returns within two weeks of lodgement and issue the Notice of Assessment (for individuals). Please keep an eye on your MyGov account for the Notice of Assessment.

We’re happy to tailor our services as best we can to meet your particular needs so please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss any special requirements or queries.