Do I Need an Accountant, or Can I Do My Own Tax With myTax?

For most employees, doing your own tax with myTax is genuinely fine. If your income is wages or salary, plus the usual extras like bank interest, dividends from a managed fund, or a private health insurance statement, the ATO pre-fills most of it for you. You check the figures, add your work-related deductions, and lodge. It costs nothing.

You're more likely to want a registered tax agent when the return stops being a fill-in-the-blanks exercise and starts involving judgement. That usually means one or more of the situations below.

• You run a business or earn sole trader/contractor income (ABN income, gig work where you invoice clients)
• You own a rental property and need to get depreciation, repairs vs improvements, and apportionment right
• You sold shares, crypto or an investment property and have a capital gain or loss to work out
• You have foreign income, are a recent arrival, or are a non-resident for tax purposes
• Your affairs changed a lot this year (started or sold a business, large redundancy, inheritance, moved overseas)
• You're simply time-poor or anxious about getting it wrong, and want a professional to own it

None of these strictly require an agent. myTax can technically handle business income, rental income, capital gains and foreign income. The question is whether the time you'd spend learning the rules, and the risk of getting them wrong, is worth more to you than the fee. For a lot of people with a single payg job, it isn't. For people with the situations above, it often is.

There's no rule that says complex returns must use an agent and simple ones can't. It's a cost-benefit call, and it can change year to year.

myTax is the ATO's free online tax return for individuals. You reach it by signing in to myGov and linking the ATO as a service. You can lodge on a computer, smartphone or tablet, and it's available 24 hours a day.

The big advantage is pre-filling. The ATO collects data from your employers, banks, government agencies, health funds and other third parties and loads it straight into your return. Most of this is ready by late July. Your job is then to confirm the pre-filled figures are correct and complete, add anything that isn't there (some deductions, some income), and lodge.

Most myTax refunds issue within about two weeks, which is faster than a paper return. You can also use myTax to lodge prior-year returns (online lodgement is available for returns from 2016 onwards) and to amend a return you've already lodged.

What you'll want on hand before you start: your bank account details for the refund, receipts and records for any deductions you're claiming, your private health insurance statement if you have cover, and details of any income that won't be pre-filled (for example, cash income, some foreign income, or capital gains).

If you genuinely can't use myTax or an agent, you can ask the ATO for a paper return, but for almost everyone myTax is the simpler path.

The single most common self-lodgement mistake is lodging in early July, before your data has arrived. The ATO has been blunt about this: people who lodge in early July are around twice as likely to make a mistake, and their returns are far more likely to be missing information.

By late July, most pre-fill data is in. Before you lodge, two quick checks save a lot of grief: confirm your employer has marked your income statement as 'tax ready', and confirm your pre-fill is showing in myTax. If something is missing (a second job, a bank account, a managed fund), wait or add it manually rather than lodging an incomplete return.

Getting it wrong isn't just an inconvenience. If you under-report income because it hadn't pre-filled yet, the ATO can later amend your return and you may have to repay part of your refund. Waiting a few weeks is almost always the safer move.

This applies whether you use myTax or an agent. A good agent will also wait for your pre-fill data before lodging.

If you lodge your own return, the deadline is 31 October. If 31 October falls on a weekend, it moves to the next business day. Miss it without arranging an extension and you can be exposed to a late-lodgement penalty (see below).

Registered tax agents have their own lodgment program with the ATO, which generally gives their clients later due dates, often well into the following year depending on your circumstances and lodgement history. This is one practical reason people use an agent: breathing room.

The catch is timing. To get the benefit of an agent's extended dates, you generally need to be on their books before 31 October. If you're using a tax agent for the first time, or switching agents, contact them before 31 October so they can add you to their program. Leave it until November and you may have already missed your own deadline.

If you have overdue prior-year returns, sort those out too. An agent can help, and the ATO encourages getting unlodged years up to date.

myTax costs nothing. An accountant or registered tax agent charges a fee. There's no fixed price, it depends on complexity and the firm, but a standard individual return is commonly a few hundred dollars, with more involved returns (business, rental, capital gains) costing more. Always ask for a fee estimate up front, in writing if you can.

The good news: fees you pay to a registered tax agent to prepare and lodge your return are tax deductible. You claim them the following year under 'cost of managing tax affairs' (item D10). So a $300 agent fee paid this year reduces your taxable income next year. The real out-of-pocket cost is the fee minus the tax you save on the deduction.

You can also claim some self-lodgement costs under the same heading, such as tax software you bought to prepare your return, or travel to get tax advice from a registered adviser.

One important limit: you can only claim fees paid to a recognised tax adviser, meaning a registered tax agent, barrister or solicitor. Advice from someone who isn't registered isn't deductible, and they can't legally charge you to prepare your return in the first place.

Indicative figures only: confirm current fees with the provider, and check current deduction rules at the official source before you rely on them.

This is the one non-negotiable step if you decide to use an agent. By law, only a registered tax agent (or a registered BAS agent within their scope) can charge a fee to prepare and lodge your tax return or give you tax agent services. There are serious penalties for unregistered people who charge for tax work, and using one leaves you exposed.

The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) keeps a free public register. Before you hand over your details or pay anyone, search the register by the agent's name, business name, or registration number. Check they're currently registered and that their registration is active, not suspended or cancelled.

Registration also matters for your deduction. Fees are only deductible if paid to a recognised tax adviser, and a registered tax agent is exactly that. An unregistered preparer fails on both counts: they can't legally charge you, and the fee isn't claimable.

If an 'accountant' also wants to advise you on investments or super, note that's a separate hat: financial product advice generally requires an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence, which you can check on the Moneysmart financial advisers register.

Cost shouldn't be the reason a low-income earner skips lodging. Two free, government-backed programs exist.

The ATO Tax Help program is a free, confidential service for people earning around $70,000 or less with simple tax affairs. Trained ATO volunteers help you prepare and lodge through myTax, online, by phone, or in person at Tax Help centres. It runs from July to October each year. You're generally not eligible if you ran a business or worked as a contractor (for example, a rideshare or delivery driver invoicing clients), because those affairs aren't 'simple'.

The National Tax Clinic program is separate. It's delivered through universities across every state and territory, where students studying tax help unrepresented taxpayers under the supervision of qualified professionals. It's aimed at individuals and small businesses who can't access or afford a tax practitioner due to economic, social or personal factors, and it can also help with prior-year and more complex situations that Tax Help can't.

Both are free. If your situation is genuinely complex and you're in hardship, the tax clinic route can give you professional-grade help without a fee.

If you lodge late, the ATO can apply a Failure to Lodge on time (FTL) penalty. For individuals it's calculated at one penalty unit for every 28 days (or part of) that the return is overdue, up to a maximum of five penalty units. A penalty unit is $330 (set from 7 November 2024), so the maximum FTL penalty on a single late individual return is currently $1,650. General interest charges can also apply to unpaid tax.

In practice, the ATO says it generally won't issue an FTL penalty where the late lodgement results in a refund or a nil result, and it can remit (reduce or cancel) penalties where there are good reasons, such as illness or a natural disaster. If you've fallen behind, lodging now is almost always better than not lodging.

If you realise you made a mistake after lodging, you don't need to panic. Individuals generally have two years to request an amendment to a return. You can amend most returns yourself in myTax, or ask your agent to do it.

Whoever lodges, you're responsible for the accuracy of your return. Using an agent doesn't transfer that responsibility, but a good agent reduces the odds of an error and represents you if the ATO has questions.

Penalty and interest figures change over time. Confirm the current penalty unit value and rules at the official ATO source before relying on them.