ATO (tax office) payments by credit card

[SOPOOR]

That's a lot of Only1 gift cards. That would require a lot of effort to purchase. Macros would help but it was taking me 1-2 minutes to process each ATO payment manually.

I will shortly have to pay ATO ~$70,000 capital gains tax. I don't have a credit card that earns 1:1 point. Think the Virgin money card only earns 1:0.5 points. I have almost convinced myself that it'd be worthwhile to purchase the $500 Visa gift cards from Harvey Norman but will do that over a number of months to lessen the burden. Also there is only 1 Harvey Norman store that I know that still sells the Visa gift cards.

I think that's enough points for a one-way in business to Thailand at a cost of ~$900 plus SQ taxes. It's debatable whether that is actually worth it. An economy return is almost half that amount and earns points to use for future use. But that's for another discussion.

i think ive been to a few HNs and none of them seem to have any $500 or $1000 cards, which kinda sux

im in vic,
maybe its not a thing in vic

 

[daft009]

you can even buy the $1k ones here, Welcome to Gift Cards Direct
though not sure on the ROI in terms of points as they have a hefty amex surcharge.

 

[Scr77]

you can even buy the $1k ones here, Welcome to Gift Cards Direct
though not sure on the ROI in terms of points as they have a hefty amex surcharge.

Maybe it's my browser, but I can't see anyway of paying other than bank transfer.

 

[daft009]

From what I remember it's under the FAQ the last time I checked

 

[andye]

2.9% for credit card. Would make it not viable for me

 

[albyd]

i think ive been to a few HNs and none of them seem to have any $500 or $1000 cards, which kinda sux

im in vic,
maybe its not a thing in vic

Just be aware that the HV Mygift2u Visa GCs have been compromised. I found a significant number of the ones I bought were compromised and am waiting for replacements. There's also some discussion of it in the Amex offers thread. It's tempting to use these as they are reasonably high value but only if you can afford to tie up funds while waiting for a refund in the event of fraud. Otherwise RewardPay at 2.6% starting to look attractive in terms of hassle.

 

[SOPOOR]

Just be aware that the HV Mygift2u Visa GCs have been compromised. I found a significant number of the ones I bought were compromised and am waiting for replacements. There's also some discussion of it in the Amex offers thread. It's tempting to use these as they are reasonably high value but only if you can afford to tie up funds while waiting for a refund in the event of fraud. Otherwise RewardPay at 2.6% starting to look attractive in terms of hassle.

yes I ve read those threads,

what a farce, I had one $500 wish gift card issue recently and that was a nightmare, it took 2 weeks as my card was voided apparently because I did a balance check before activation, even though the issue date and physical arrival date was 3 days later

$5 fee for $500 or $1000 is very attractive,

but I guess ill stay away from them

 

[JohnK]

i think ive been to a few HNs and none of them seem to have any $500 or $1000 cards, which kinda sux

im in vic,
maybe its not a thing in vic

I have been calling Harvey Normans in Brisbane and Sydney asking if they stocked Visa gift cards. Boy some of them can be very rude.

 

[cove]

We have several Australian CCs that still work but today we are going to Los Angeles. I think I can leave the fiscal fiend payments to later in the month once I have done my work without being late. The on line payments system works from anywhere so it shouldn't be a problem. Our main trading entity now pays ATO 38 times a year so that is such a painful waste of time and energy. Then of course there are 60 payroll tax payments each year because we employ staff in 5 States.
So much for the idea of cutting business red tape.....it went the other way.

 

[Jacques Vert]

We have several Australian CCs that still work but today we are going to Los Angeles. I think I can leave the fiscal fiend payments to later in the month once I have done my work without being late. The on line payments system works from anywhere so it shouldn't be a problem. Our main trading entity now pays ATO 38 times a year so that is such a painful waste of time and energy. Then of course there are 60 payroll tax payments each year because we employ staff in 5 States.
So much for the idea of cutting business red tape.....it went the other way.

Sounds like you need to employ someone to purchase and enter GCs for your entities; almost a full time job

 

[MrHyde]

That's a lot of Only1 gift cards. That would require a lot of effort to purchase. Macros would help but it was taking me 1-2 minutes to process each ATO payment manually.

With the macro I wrote, it takes me about 25-30 seconds per card. I only need to enter 3 sets of numbers for each card, the 3rd and 4th set of 4 numbers and the 3 digit code. All other numbers are the same across all payments, so that is saved within the macro. The macro also sends me the email receipt at the end so that i can do a quick reconciliation at the end by seeing that I got the right number of emails.

I know I can get it quicker by changing over to use a CSV; but I prefer watching each payment go through as it allows me to make sure that everything is working. I don't want to start an auto process of 100 payments and then come back to find it failed for whatever reason after 53.

 

[infinity]

Just getting my St George Amplify/QF Signature Visa and Point Hacks says you still get points for ATO spend.

Do you still get points on ATO and if so how much per $?

 

[burnt]

Anybody noticed on the "easypay" website, the box for credit card fees now displays a lot of different rates, MC & V are different, debit cards are different again and the one to top it off was the "excessive" fee that they charge for paying with an "international credit card" It was horrific, maybe that will pull up Cove with his overseas cards?

 

[PLANT]

So with the pending loss of ANZ AMEX.....I emailed cashrewards for a better rate. The response I thought odd......."Our Woolies rewards rate is controlled by Woolies " WTF?... Hence no big gift card purchase for ATO prior to 5 th August. I encourage fellow ATO to send an email each to ask for higher than 5% rate..... See if the combined effort moves Cashrewards......

 

[downtheback]

I was thinking, the way cashrewards offers the 5% discount is through affiliate marketing, woolworths pays them for their traffic. What if an AFFer was to set up a website for the sole purpose of funnelling AFF traffic through a single portal, because I know that Woolies affiliate commission is ~8%, so could be worthwhile investigating.

 

[daft009]

With the macro I wrote, it takes me about 25-30 seconds per card. I only need to enter 3 sets of numbers for each card, the 3rd and 4th set of 4 numbers and the 3 digit code. All other numbers are the same across all payments, so that is saved within the macro. The macro also sends me the email receipt at the end so that i can do a quick reconciliation at the end by seeing that I got the right number of emails.

Any chance of sharing this macro with us simple folk please

 

[MrHyde]

No probs. Here it is. I use the iMacros for Chrome plugin to run this. Replace the xx_XX with your PRN and email address. Verify the CONTENT values are what you want them to be. The wait times were added to ensure each page had enough time to load before the macro pressed the next button. At the settings below, I found there were no failures. If I reduced the wait time, I would get the occassional failure in the email sending part.

VERSION BUILD=844 RECORDER=CR
URL GOTO=https://www.optussmartpay.com/access/index.aspx?a=84435932&dl=RBA_ATO
' SET !VAR1 EVAL("prompt('Please enter 1st 4 digits:');")
' SET !VAR2 EVAL("prompt('Please enter 2nd 4 digits:');")
SET !VAR3 EVAL("prompt('Please enter 3rd 4 digits:');")
SET !VAR4 EVAL("prompt('Please enter 4th 4 digits:');")
SET !VAR5 EVAL("prompt('Please enter secret 3 digit PIN:');")
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl*
' Enter the PRN
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=xx_xx_xx_xx_X
TAG POS=2 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=99.85
TAG POS=3 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=4645
TAG POS=4 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=5603
TAG POS=5 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT={{!VAR3}}
TAG POS=6 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT={{!VAR4}}
TAG POS=1 TYPE=SELECT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=%01
TAG POS=2 TYPE=SELECT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=%2019
SET !ENCRYPTION NO
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUTASSWORD FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT={{!VAR5}}
' Submit initial Details
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl*
WAIT SECONDS=5
' Confirm payment
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl*
WAIT SECONDS=8
' Display Email
TAG POS=2 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl*
' Enter Email address
TAG POS=3 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=xx_XX@xx_xx_.xx_XX
TAG POS=4 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl* CONTENT=xx_XX@xx_xx_.xx_XX
WAIT SECONDS=1
' Send email receipt
TAG POS=4 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=ID:frmMain ATTR=ID:ctrl*

 

[Saurs82]

Used coles card to pay ato on 27/7 no points posted yet but points have posted from other payments made after that date. Points posted for previous ato payment earlier in the month, do they just take a while to post or has something changed?

 

[albyd]

There've been reports they're still posting. I've been doing some small testers and points that are posting aren't liking up with what I've spent that day on my Coles MC.
Going to try a larger one and report back. Should only take a few days to post once the transaction has posted to the account and is no longer pending.

 

[cove]

Yes infinity. I think you will be happy with the result.