ATO (tax office) payments by credit card

[cove]

Yes you guesstimate it!

 

[sumthinfornuthin]

How do you guys check your points against transactions that have been processed? I have never been able to find this function on the Citibank website so its just a rough guess from the previous balance that I use as a yardstick.

Will be keen to hear on current payments and points scenarios as my next credit card cycle finishes just before the due date for my next lot of payments at the end of November.

Hi Edman

i simply do the arithmetical check against debits on statement and reconcile at 1.5 points per dollar to make sure it balances. I don't have an individual listing, viz a vis Amex or WOW EDR card etc but at the end of the day I don't think it matters if the total is right.

I have just had a fortnight in Thailand and my Citibank card pays me 4.5 points per dollar for debits outside Australia !

I know there is a 3 % currency conversion fee but the other Card companies charge the same so at least it softens the blow a little bit.

 

[baggas]

Hi there,
I'm a bit late to this game but am going to start paying my BAS with my NAB Qantas Platinum Mastercard this month.
Does anyone have any experience/problems using this card?
My only doubt is that on the NAB website it states that point earning "everyday purchases exclude : transactions we decide are wholly or partly for a business or investment purpose"

Would love to hear any reassuring feedback that I can actually earn points for my BAS transactions.

Cheers,

Paul



EDIT : Actually now that I think about it, the amount I pay to the the government when I pay my quarterly BAS is actually fully comprised by my PAYG instalment Hence this is legitimately a personal expense, rather than a business one, so that should be okay, right?

 

[cove]

No one in this thread has reported missing out on points. We saw a couple of cards get cancelled by Woolworths EDR credit card about a year ago and that was it.
You might want to mix up your card usage so there is not a whole page of ATO transactions and nothing else. All I am suggesting is you put something else of a personal nature on your card for a better look.

 

[baggas]

You might want to mix up your card usage so there is not a whole page of ATO transactions and nothing else. All I am suggesting is you put something else of a personal nature on your card for a better look.

Well that won't be a problem. 90% of all our family spending goes on these cards, so the statement runs to 4-5 pages every month. Hopefully the ATO payment will easily get lost admidst all that

 

[Pushka]

Hi there,
I'm a bit late to this game but am going to start paying my BAS with my NAB Qantas Platinum Mastercard this month.
Does anyone have any experience/problems using this card?
My only doubt is that on the NAB website it states that point earning "everyday purchases exclude : transactions we decide are wholly or partly for a business or investment purpose"
Would love to hear any reassuring feedback that I can actually earn points for my BAS transactions.
Paul
EDIT : Actually now that I think about it, the amount I pay to the the government when I pay my quarterly BAS is actually fully comprised by my PAYG instalment Hence this is legitimately a personal expense, rather than a business one, so that should be okay, right?

We have a Business Qantas NAB credit card, so all our purchases are for Business. And we still get the points for QFF when we (me!) pays the BAS (or any other ATO bill) with it.

 

[angusburns]

I am with Pushka: I put all my business expenses, including my BAS payments though, in my case, a CitiBusiness card (250k point annual cap), and my all of my personal expenses, including family tax payments, through a Citibank Select card (no cap) - so as far as I can tell it should all be fine. I put a lot of non-ATO stuff through those cards as well so putting tax payments on them as well is just part of my normal use.

So points from my business expenses go to QFF and personal ones go to Citibank rewards and thence onto Krisflyer or Virgin or Asia Miles etc...

Hope this helps.

 

[Newk]

There is a clause against business payments not earning points. However not sure it is enforced.
However, they could do what Amex did and change earn rates.

To be honest, there is way too much info on this thread and i would rather the mods just delete it from the public record.

we could all stop posting and it would sink out of sight?

 

[Deleted User]

To be honest, there is way too much info on this thread and i would rather the mods just delete it from the public record.

I agree, however I think we are in the minority....

 

[wafliron]

To be honest, there is way too much info on this thread and i would rather the mods just delete it from the public record.

So now that you've had your chance to benefit from the info in this thread you want it removed to preserve your benefit, at the expense of anyone else who might read it and benefit from it in the future? Selfish much?

 

[angusburns]

My five figure ATO payment on Thursday had gone through when I checked this morning and the points have appeared as well - on my Citibusiness card.

Doing another large payment tomorrow on my Citibank Select - also a personal payment so should be OK but will report back if I have any problems...

 

[Deleted User]

So now that you've had your chance to benefit from the info in this thread you want it removed to preserve your benefit, at the expense of anyone else who might read it and benefit from it in the future? Selfish much?

I don't think selfish is the right term, I think we all love to share here amongst the AFF community, the problem is that google bots make nearly all of this information available to anyone including the authorities and companies who are not so willing to share the booty perhaps.

"if there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and you knew where the rainbow was, who would you tell...? If you told everybody, pretty quickly the pot would be empty"

I'm still un-decided, however I think carefully now before posting some information, my actions in the future will be to share basic information where users can ask me direct for more information or links, while this to some may be selfish, I think most would agree its really not...

 

[cove]

There are about 12 million taxpayers. If about 10 or 20 thousand catch on and then half actually do something about it I would be surprised. The average citizen in Australia does not get around to lots of things.
Don't panic....just travel at the wholesale price and enjoy it.
One of my colleagues came to LAX on the SQ a380 and he tells me it was wonderful in business class.
Just think that you are ahead of the game.

 

[angusburns]

Selfish? Maybe.

Unsustainable? Almost certainly, and the more people that pay the ATO on CC, the bigger the problem and the more pressure there will be on the CC companies to do something.

ATO/Optus/Visa charge us 0.48% to pay by Visa and then Citibank Select gives us 1.333 Krisflyer points per dollar (1.33%). Doesn't add up.

 

[amaroo]

Well.....aren't we lucky that js didn't decide that it was secret persons business:idea:

 

[edman]

Hi Edman

i simply do the arithmetical check against debits on statement and reconcile at 1.5 points per dollar to make sure it balances. I don't have an individual listing, viz a vis Amex or WOW EDR card etc but at the end of the day I don't think it matters if the total is right.

Thanks guys, didn't think I was mad. A bit surprised they have managed t get away it for so long as it doesn't really show a lot of accountability in terms of the points.

 

[penegal]

Selfish? Maybe.

Unsustainable? Almost certainly, and the more people that pay the ATO on CC, the bigger the problem and the more pressure there will be on the CC companies to do something.

ATO/Optus/Visa charge us 0.48% to pay by Visa and then Citibank Select gives us 1.333 Krisflyer points per dollar (1.33%). Doesn't add up.

It also depends what CitiBank pay SQ for the miles, which we don't know.

A friend in the industry tells me that there is a nominal number that he uses, but even this can be negotiated with the various deals in play.

 

[angusburns]

True we don't know what they pay SQ. I was looking at the Qantas accounts a couple of years ago and seem to be about 1c per point was the going rate there. Times might have changed and/or SQ might be keener to do a deal for a bigger share of seats out of Australia.

All quite interesting at the moment - Virgin has a deal going until the end of this month with some financial institutions where if you transfer points you get a 15% bonus, or 20% if you are Ascent Premium (ie Amex Plat card and maybe others). Unfortunately Citibank is not participating. I transferred on Friday and was in my Velocity account on Monday so people could still do it today.

Similarly Virgin Atlantic is offering 25% bonus miles on points transferred until the end of this month, but again seems to be Amex only.

Which is annoying as I really would prefer to transfer my Citibank points as I have a lot more of them at the moment and will continue to earn more in future. I don't think I will be earning too many Amex points now that they effectively don't have a 1.5 point per dollar for the vast majority of my expenses - I have gone on a spenders strike except for restaurants etc, when I remember.

Still, it is another way to get a higher number of FF points per $1 spent - 1.5 on the way in to Amex (before they reduced it) and the 1.25 to VA on the way out now = 1.875 points per $1 spent. Not bad if you like to fly VA.

 

[angusburns]

I don't think we can bury this thread, even if we wanted to, and anyway, if we make payments within their terms we are not doing anything wrong.

FWIW, I applied for a credit limit increase with Citibank last week and they called me today and emphasised several times that the Select card is for personal use only. I explained that I have a Citibuisiness card for my business expenses and they seemed to be happy with that. Will have to wait and see what limit increase they give me.

Hopefully Cove is right and not too many people will be bothered to pay by credit card. The only problem is that, I would imagine, those that do start would be disinclined to stop, and those that do pay by credit card do so because it is worth it, so would tend to have a higher than average transaction amount. So the more people who start to pay by credit card, the more the aggregate ATO payments by credit card amount will keep growing.

Here's hoping for business as usual.

 

[sumthinfornuthin]

They would all not be doing it ( The ATO and the C/Card companies) unless the numbers worked.

They all win and the smart ones ( us ) win as well. in the overall scheme of things the points would be miniscule for them but major for us. Enjoy it whilst we can