So every year I pay the ATO decent amount of tax i owe - i have read a few people have managed to 'get some' benefit out of paying them ie using Coles Mastercards was a previous method in which you got some play buys points for purchasing them and using them to pay back the ATO.
Anyone got any other tricks or tips on keeping the tax man happy but getting something out of it
Betterment? That sums up the government well, the more money you pour down their throats the more betterment the world gets, righto.
Find a credit card deal with a bonus points offer. Use Zip to pay the ATO via Bpay and use the credit card to pay back Zip. Happy days!
i never new the ATO accepted ZIP pay this is good to know thank you
happen to know if they accept google pay
The ATO doesn't accept Zip but they do accept Bpay. Zip will let you pay via Bpay.
Are fees still $0?
Zip website seems to suggest $2.50 fee well…with "3 x stars for "Expectations may apply" (whatever those and who's 'expectations' are shrugs)
@c0lch3y: The fee is waived if u have a $0 balance at the end of the month. So you just need to pay it off before last day of month else it's 2.50
This.
This is what I do too. That way you still get your cc points
As long as you pay it off in the month, there aren't any extra fees either (I used to use snip which does charge fees)
Just looking at how this zip payment works. Has zip recently reduced the account limit to $1500 only?
Mines 1k.
But u can use the 1k to bpay something, then pay it off straight away with your cc and pay something else for 1k (rinse and repeat).
Payback with Apple Gift Cards at 15% discount!
i dont think this works does it
Jokes ;) There are scams going around where scammer pretends to be from ATO and demands payment in Apple Gift Cards :P
poor people that get caught out
DYOR
Isn't this spoon feed me dot com dot au?
More like Oz roast me dot com dot au haha lol :)
My tip - become a resident of a tax free jurisdiction ;)
Does declaring oneself a sovereign citizen count?
I never made a contract with the ATO organisation.
As long as you write a long worded letter to the ATO that doesn't make much sense and sign it with a red thumb print.
Take ATO to Court, despite not recognising the authority of said Court, like the 'smart' sov cits do.
Didn't a guy here get VISA gift cards, overpay his taxes, then found the ATO wouldn't refund him because it needed to be the original payment method? So I guess if you overpay with such a method you should be prepared to leave your ATO account in credit for an extra year.
you could pay 80-90 percent with it and the last 10 percent or so with a regular account - there is no rule in which you cannot pay via multiple methods from what i 'understand'
So, if we owe $40k to tax man we can pay 4 times 10k in different payment methods? Thanks
I highly doubt it. I’ve personally overpaid my tax(for the purposes of generating a ton of points during double point earning periods) by a fair amount(think mid 6 figures) on my credit card, applied to ATO for a refund of overpaid tax, then once money hit my account, overloaded the credit card again and repeated the process. Generated tons of cheap points this way(and subsequently used it to fly first class all over the world). ATO never pushed back or questioned any of my refund requests, they always just asked to check that the bank account registered to me on ATO systems was still the right one to refund to.
ATO doesn’t care how the money gets to them, their main concern is getting people to pay their taxes in first place. Whether they get paid in big chunks, lots of small $500 chunks(I’ve also done this previously) from prepaid gift cards, paid via bank transfer or credit card, they don’t care. It all just gets flagged as inbound payments into your “tax account” with them.
How did you get around the credit card fees the ATO normally charges? That usually make this method uneconomical or did you just wear the fees as tax deduction?
Wore the fees as a tax deduction. This was back when cards were earning a healthy amount of points, even when paying govt departments like ATO. And during double points promotions, made the points even cheaper
I’ve personally overpaid my tax(for the purposes of generating a ton of points during double point earning periods) by a fair amount(think mid 6 figures) on my credit card, applied to ATO for a refund of overpaid tax, then once money hit my account, overloaded the credit card again and repeated the process.
By mid 6 figures are you saying that you overpaid by at least $500,000 on multiple occasions and the ATO happily just refunded it on request?
(or are you including the figures after the decimal point in your 'mid 6 figures?)
This didn't trigger any sort of 'money laundering alarm' at the ATO?
And what sort of credit card has that size limit?
Yup. Did it a few times. Around 400k mark each time and ATO refunded it on request, I just called in and asked for refund of overpaid tax. No money laundering alarms or anything like that
My credit card had a 50k limit and I had a lot of spare cash at that time. So I would make a 50k payment to ATO on credit card, use cash to clear balance once the transaction settled on the card, then repeat until i had used up all my spare cash. Then call up ATO to refund excess, that usually took a few days. Then I repeated a few more times until the double points promo period ran out.
The credit card fee outweighs the points value too, however you could claim the fee for the next quarter.
@jizmo: Payment of your ATO obligations is different(and completely separate) from lodgement. You can only lodge your BAS/PAYG instalment once(well, technically you can revise it multiple times after that), but you can make as many payments towards your ATO account as you want. Ask the people who are making the payments in $100 chunks(or whatever denomination giftcard they managed to buy). The total paid can be over your amount owed to the ATO, and that’s when you request a refund back to your bank account. Then, oops, I’ve overpaid the ATO again. It’s not rocket science, there are no checks from the ato side to check that you haven’t overpaid them. Like I said, their concern is people not paying them enough tax, not paying them too much tax .
With regards to credit card fee outweighing the points value, that could well be true now, but back before ATO payments were nerfed for point earning on most credit cards, the points you could get were very cheap. ESPECIALLY during special promos like double points.
There’s a 500+ page thread on the Australian frequent flyer forum that started from 2009 that talks about this and all the various strategies people were using to maximise their points earn, it wasn’t exactly secret.
Don’t know why I’m getting downvoted in my responses above. I maximised my point value earning and did it all within the system limits, nobody suffered for it(unless you count the massive corporate airlines who had to give out millions of points). Isn’t that part of the ozbargain ethos, to maximise value from bargains?
ATO didn’t care even after the fact, I ended up working for them for 5+ years after that and I had to pass rigorous background checks to get the NV1 clearance for my role with them, and that was no problem.
@Kenb0: Yeah I have no idea why you're getting down voted either, just for giving people info on what you did previously. I think people are hating the fact you had 400k spare cash to drop into your ATO account. Anyway I've given you my up vote.
keeping the tax man happy but getting something out of it
Happy endings all round ?¿
TCN VISA
Pocket Money MasterCard
Have to wait for the sale.
This?
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/830616
20x EDR Points on Apple Gift Cards | 15% Cashback on Pocket Money Prepaid (Digital) Gift Cards + $5.95 Activation Fees @ BIG W
But… Limit one redemption claim per Mobile Number
Beyond that satisfactory feeling of contributing to the betterment of society right? :D
I got nothing, sry