ATO (tax office) payments by credit card

[burmans]

There have been reports from a few including cove I believe that they got away with this but would you really want to risk it! What I'd do is

Day 1, BPAY 8K
Day 2 (once 8K hits balance is 8K), pay 20 K & (same day) BPAY 20K
Day 3 (once 20K hits balance is 8K), pay 20K & (same day BPAY 10K
Day 4 (once 10K hits balance is -2K), pay 10K

REmaining balance now -12K and you can wait for due date.

 

[KLN]

i have a Westpac Altitude Platinum Plus..........$50K limit. i once had a BAS/PAYG EOQ combined of $78K.
Put the $78K into my credit card so that it was in credit, and did 2 separate transaction, 1 X $50K and 1 X 28K the next day........just in case. but there's no issue with this card between personal and business use.

 

[wafliron]

Can somebody please provide assistance in the best method of paying approximately $50,000 is tax when I have a $13,000 limit on CitiBusiness Gold card. Do I have to put the card $50,000 in credit and then do a large BPay via website (is there restrictions on how much one can transact at once?).

As others have pointed out, you can either put the card significantly into credit (roughly $37k into credit) and pay it all in one day, or you can go through a cycle of charging $13k to it and then paying off the balance in full via EFT each day over several days. Either way, remember that you'll need a little bit of extra credit available to cover the 0.48% merchant fee and you must process the charges via the CC payment portal linked to from the ATO's website - do not use BPay via Citi's online banking to pay the ATO or you won't get points.

If you go for the former (go into credit and pay in one day), a couple of extra notes:

- you cannot charge more than the card's credit limit per transaction, no matter how much the card is in credit by. So even though you can do it in one day you will still need to charge $13k + $13k + $13k + $11.?k (remembering merchant fee) as separate transactions.

- despite the T&Cs saying you won't earn points for charges made to the card when it is more than $10k in credit, my personal experience is that this rule is not actually enforced. I regularly put both my CitiBusiness Gold and Citi Select significantly more than $10k in credit (I think my record is ~$90k in credit on Select) and have always earned full points. I know at least one other member who regularly does the same with their Citi Select and has also had no issues. I guess there's always a tiny risk that they could suddenly start enforcing the rule, but I wouldn't be too worried.

Sorry didn't realize it was Citibusiness gold

Rather ridiculously, last time I checked the CBG T&Cs they actually disallowed points earn (or maybe even use at all?) for business transactions - despite the marketing collateral and product name! I've never heard of business charges being an issue for any Citibank credit card though.

 

[cove]

I started on my 8 ATO amounts the other night with a combination of 4 Visa/MasterCards. If I run out of time I can use 7 Amex cards but I would rather wrap it all up by using Plan A rather than use the expensive Amex cards. That of course is 4 Amex cards for me and 3 Amex cards for Mrscove.
I won't be putting any of these cards into credit and I will just split up the BPays into the credit cards I am using.
Now will I call my ATO girlfriend or go on line.....so many decisions.....so many choices ??
Now where are we going?? Somewhere that is really nice I hope.
Enjoy the game js started with this thread.

 

[Deleted User]

I started on my 8 ATO amounts the other night with a combination of 4 Visa/MasterCards. If I run out of time I can use 7 Amex cards but I would rather wrap it all up by using Plan A rather than use the expensive Amex cards. That of course is 4 Amex cards for me and 3 Amex cards for Mrscove.
I won't be putting any of these cards into credit and I will just split up the BPays into the credit cards I am using.
Now will I call my ATO girlfriend or go on line.....so many decisions.....so many choices ??
Now where are we going?? Somewhere that is really nice I hope.
Enjoy the game js started with this thread.

Long live JS...

 

[Deleted User]

BAS time....plus I have managed to do well this year (Last year) and my business partner (read as ATO) requires more funding this year, a few years ago I would not be impressed about this, but since this thread, paying tax is nearly pleasurable...? :shock:

Will all be on a 1:1 Mastercard at 0.48% fee / tax deductible....Yeah cove, living the dream...

Really enjoying the easy J upgrades thanks to this thread...!

 

[cove]

My 4 cards become 3 cards as I approach a points cap. That card was loaded way too quickly and it is my only capped card.
The ATO fees are less than $960 as we paid some rates and taxes on it so it wasn't just a line of $50,000 payments to the ATO up to the cap.

 

[angusburns]

I put my Citibusiness Gold card into credit every quarter so I can pay the ATO with no problems. Might be safer to do it in several chunks, one per day, if you want more comfort.

Remember there is a cap on points with this card (250,000 I think, or $200k of spend at 1.25 points per $ per year) If you exceed the cap, you don't get any more points - as I found out the hard way in the old days when the cap was only $80,000 per annum.

FWIW, I have to pay the ATO via credit card at the Optus Surepay website, follow the link to it from the ATO How to pay webpage, as my bank website says I can't pay the ATO by credit card when I try.

Hope this helps.

 

[burmans]

Rather ridiculously, last time I checked the CBG T&Cs they actually disallowed points earn (or maybe even use at all?) for business transactions - despite the marketing collateral and product name! I've never heard of business charges being an issue for any Citibank credit card though.

I think they don't enforce because they see that this would be laughed out of court, advertising that this can be used for business expenses and then not allowing is surely meeting the definition of misleading and deceptive.

 

[cove]

Angus I still find calling to be my preferred way of paying ATO bills and see the rapidly rising receipt numbers regardless of whether it is during business hours or in the early hours of the day.
There is something mildly reassuring dealing with the female voice as she takes the loot. Of course I feel good thinking there is a First class or Business Class seat beckoning. That voice is my ATO girlfriend but I can share her!
Yesterday one of my payments was rejected so I took a second shot with a smaller amount and fortunately it went through ok. More than one person use that card so there must have been something else getting processed elsewhere.
I do feel it looks a bit better to have a mix of payments on each card rather than a page of $50,000 payouts and $240 fees.
Naturally your friends will think you are a bit strange until you book them on a freebie as one of your 5 Kris Flyer redemption nominees seeing they don't need to be a relative.
My son is happy going to London on SQ in business class as he thinks the Changi business class lounge is totally brilliant.

 

[Deleted User]

cove I think you are enjoying this game too much, I hope for everybody's sake this little gem does not get "enhanced" due to people hoarding too many easy / cheap points off the ATO portal.

I assume the CC companies still making $$$ but I guess the real winner is optus and the frequent flyer companies...

 

[cove]

I think the ATO get paid a bit quicker so it is all good out there in taxpayer land.

 

[angusburns]

Hi Cove,

You can have your bit of fun with Mrs ATO, I prefer the website - cutting and pasting the fields in from MS-Notepad make multiple payments much quicker and is less error-prone (useful for me)

FWIW, I pay my all my business expenses, including tax on my CitiBusiness Card and the same for my personal expenses on my CitiSelect Card.

Of course by value the ATO payments dwarf the rest, but they are but a few payments a quarter so hopefully will not trigger any 'abuse of card' alarms.

Sometimes I wonder about the risk of carrying large quantities of points in the Citibank Account, should they decide that they are forfeit but don't want to prematurely start the clock at KrisFlyer with a premature transfer / might want to transfer to Virgin, Cathay etc...

 

[cove]

Our BAS is monthly and then there are the quarterlies to make it a never ending story with the ATO.
You just reminded me to think about Virgin...I should try a flight.

 

[wafliron]

Sometimes I wonder about the risk of carrying large quantities of points in the Citibank Account, should they decide that they are forfeit but don't want to prematurely start the clock at KrisFlyer with a premature transfer / might want to transfer to Virgin, Cathay etc...

That's my constant worry too with warehousing so many points with Citi :-/

 

[amaroo]

That's my constant worry too with warehousing so many points with Citi :-/

No different having the points sitting in your FF account - the best point is the one you just burnt!

Earn & burn is the way to go.

 

[cove]

I think I have found the solution to that worry. Checking revealed 40 international long haul point redemption flights in the last 12 months. It has been a busy year and the worry goes away.

 

[Flashback]

I think I have found the solution to that worry. Checking revealed 40 international long haul point redemption flights in the last 12 months. It has been a busy year and the worry goes away.

It's a tough life cove, but someone has to do it. On a slight side note, I ended up getting another AFL football over here... and this one has a hole in the bladder too! (it was brand new when I got it and has never been used, for a few years) So either the plane is doing something, or Sherrin are making terrible footys!

 

[cove]

Flashware we used to travel as water polo parents and we never flew with balls that had been inflated so maybe that is the problem with Sherrin. The Indian sweat shops have recently been closed according to recent news so the poor quality may be a thing of the past. Burley is the other brand I recall.
The number of international sectors flown increased as we have been flying to Singapore then turning left or right for London or Los Angeles. This month we are going thru Sydney to Los Angeles so it is the Flounge on the agenda.
Mrscove seems to be an Eastender now so I may have to watch that tv series so I can keep up.
Apparently the Six Senses Spa is really good down in East London so maybe that could get your Mrsflashware interested. It isn't just the DLR that attracted us but driverless trains are very attractive when there is a strike by workers.
Paying taxes using 3 Visa/ MasterCards is more time consuming so think of me working my fingers to the bone getting this quarters points processed.
My eldest son wants to go to a football match in the east end between Leeds and the local team and I think he is planning on going as a Leeds supporter. Wow that could be risky for him in November.
Mrscove is loving the easy redemption points flights and still thinks Qantas is great.

 

[wafliron]

No different having the points sitting in your FF account - the best point is the one you just burnt!

Earn & burn is the way to go.

I agree, but thanks largely to this thread I'm earning 'em faster than I can feasibly burn 'em at the moment!

I think I have found the solution to that worry. Checking revealed 40 international long haul point redemption flights in the last 12 months. It has been a busy year and the worry goes away.

Wow, that is impressive cove. I knew you were travelling a lot, but not that much.