E-Tax 2013

[cirqueboy]

Just noticed on the ATO website, E-Tax 2013 is available as a Mac application for the first time.

It's taken a while, no more virtual machines Hopefully there aren't too many bugs.

 

[Boris spatsky]

About time!

 

[The Rok]

Finally....

 

[coles525]

Ive downloaded it for windows, as per the instructions....

"The installation package could kot be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid windows instalker package."

 

[Mal]

Ive downloaded it for windows, as per the instructions....

"The installation package could kot be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid windows instalker package."

Could be a corrupted install, could be an issue with your computer. Try downloading again. If it still has that issue try searching the Microsoft knowledge base for your version of windows.. I expect it could be that you need to upgrade your version of the Microsoft installer.

BTW. Installed fine for me. Windows 7 x64.

 

[Joshua]

Is it a surprise that only the ATO could bring us an OSX app that has a windows 9x style installer. Sure a few Mac apps have installers but nothing like this, how much extra effort must they put into making things look bad. The high res square icon makes up for it tho.

Already found a bug I think or it might just be their interface design once again confusing the hell out of me. Will be sticking to the Windows version for now.

 

[stewiejp]

Worked fine for me - running Windows 7 Home Pro. The ato announced a while back they were going to make a Mac version, as well as one which will be Linux compatible for those so inclined. Before you know it there will be one designed for tablets and smart phones.

 

[ChasingDaylight]

Win7 x64 here also. Calculations complete, will upload in the morning. Not terribly much back though, pity. Just over $1.2k.

 

[markis10]

Ive downloaded it for windows, as per the instructions....

"The installation package could kot be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid windows instalker package."

Redownload it, it was missing a cert until yesterday for the Mac ver.

 

[drewbles]

For those who have done e-tax before, how long does it take you (say you earn enough to have to pay the additional medicare levy, have a medium level of deductions and maximum private health with a spattering of shares; not hugely complex, but a little more than your run-of-the-mill return)?

I've never done it online, instead opting for a good accountant who charges reasonably and it takes me all of 15 minutes to walk in there with paperwork, spit out some stuff to sign, pay (and claim last years tax fees on this years returns). My accountant is also handily around 300m from my new house (and I didn't move there for that reason ).

 

[NM]

For those who have done e-tax before, how long does it take you (say you earn enough to have to pay the additional medicare levy, have a medium level of deductions and maximum private health with a spattering of shares; not hugely complex, but a little more than your run-of-the-mill return)?

I've never done it online, instead opting for a good accountant who charges reasonably and it takes me all of 15 minutes to walk in there with paperwork, spit out some stuff to sign, pay (and claim last years tax fees on this years returns). My accountant is also handily around 300m from my new house (and I didn't move there for that reason ).

If you have all the paper-work handy (i.e. know how much those deductions will be etc) then it should not take much more than 2 hours. If you have done it before and know which parts you need to read and which parts you can skip, then it could be done in an hour.

I will be doing my son's very soon. His is really simple and expect to have it done in less than 30 mins. He is overseas and has emailed me his payment summary and he will receive a refund for the entire amount of tax he paid, which was very low since he spent most of the year studying and just a little part-time work. Mrs NM's will take about 30 mins. Mine will take me about 60-90 mins as I have already collated all the receipts and other details totaled in a spreadsheet so its just a matter of transposing the numbers into the correct fields.

I find the majority of the time is in the preparation - gathering all the information, assigning it into the right category (donations, travel-related expenses, interest, car expenses, other work-related expenses etc).

 

[markis10]

I find the majority of the time is in the preparation - gathering all the information, assigning it into the right category (donations, travel-related expenses, interest, car expenses, other work-related expenses etc).

I agree, and each year I promise to try a better way of keeping track of expenses through the year, this year I am only a day behind in putting that in place

 

[Austman]

I find that the pre-fill information is not usually all available until mid July or later. There was not much there for me when I tried today.

 

[simongr]

This great news - the only time I boot up windows on the Mac is for etax. I have to wait until my wife's payment summary is available. I will be doing it once I leave the current job and have free time. Last years was ready to do it in July but only got round to it in September...

 

[anat0l]

To all our Mac friends here who cannot effectively run e-tax, all I can say as a Windows user is... sucked in. (To my friends of other flavours of *nix, my sympathies )

Alright, that was really cruel... just kidding there. Suffice to say, whoever signed off the $5.2 million that was blown to do what is effectively a poor port to Mac should be dragged out into the street and shot.

Like Austman, just downloaded and installed today to find there is squat all loaded in the pre-fill, which means to me right now it's about as useful as a chocolate tea cup.

And, as everyone else has mentioned, it's actually all in the prep. I usually spend about an hour or two going through my receipts, which are either electronic or mostly in a box where I stash my receipts. After that, filling out the steps is mostly a snap.

My parents have shareholdings which are in my name, so I have to wait for shareholding statements from them to fill those in (which always confuse me a little bit with franked and unfranked amounts). Also, if you are tax deducting expensive stuff, you may have to set up a depreciation schedule.

Effectively, the app is a more or less simplistic electronic front end for what you would otherwise effectively do by hand after grabbing a paper tax pack.

 

[drewbles]

If you have all the paper-work handy (i.e. know how much those deductions will be etc) then it should not take much more than 2 hours. If you have done it before and know which parts you need to read and which parts you can skip, then it could be done in an hour.

I will be doing my son's very soon. His is really simple and expect to have it done in less than 30 mins. He is overseas and has emailed me his payment summary and he will receive a refund for the entire amount of tax he paid, which was very low since he spent most of the year studying and just a little part-time work. Mrs NM's will take about 30 mins. Mine will take me about 60-90 mins as I have already collated all the receipts and other details totaled in a spreadsheet so its just a matter of transposing the numbers into the correct fields.

I find the majority of the time is in the preparation - gathering all the information, assigning it into the right category (donations, travel-related expenses, interest, car expenses, other work-related expenses etc).

Ahh thanks for that. That would value my time at around $60/hour if I was to do it in place of my accountant. I put a higher value on my time so it's off to the accountant to go (and with the deduction, it makes it even better).

 

[Mal]

I often receive prefill data up until end of august (sept once a few years ago). So I'm never in a rush to lodge my return.

 

[anat0l]

Ahh thanks for that. That would value my time at around $60/hour if I was to do it in place of my accountant. I put a higher value on my time so it's off to the accountant to go (and with the deduction, it makes it even better).

Don't forget that you still need to do "pre-work" for your accountant in some cases, and may also need to consult with them to confirm details. Understandably this should ideally be collectively shorter than the pre-work you need to do if you did the return on your own, but it should be factored in.

Of course, I'm speaking from my family's experience here (I'm the only one of the four of us who does their own tax return - no, I am not an accountant). You may have a situation where you just dump everything on the accountant with no or very little further intervention on your part.

 

[medhead]

To all our Mac friends here who cannot effectively run e-tax, all I can say as a Windows user is... sucked in. (To my friends of other flavours of *nix, my sympathies )

Alright, that was really cruel... just kidding there. Suffice to say, whoever signed off the $5.2 million that was blown to do what is effectively a poor port to Mac should be dragged out into the street and shot.

Like Austman, just downloaded and installed today to find there is squat all loaded in the pre-fill, which means to me right now it's about as useful as a chocolate tea cup.

And, as everyone else has mentioned, it's actually all in the prep. I usually spend about an hour or two going through my receipts, which are either electronic or mostly in a box where I stash my receipts. After that, filling out the steps is mostly a snap.

My parents have shareholdings which are in my name, so I have to wait for shareholding statements from them to fill those in (which always confuse me a little bit with franked and unfranked amounts). Also, if you are tax deducting expensive stuff, you may have to set up a depreciation schedule.

Effectively, the app is a more or less simplistic electronic front end for what you would otherwise effectively do by hand after grabbing a paper tax pack.

Pre-full data takes at least 2 weeks to start to become available. That applies to both versions of etax. Pre-fill includes all your share information, so no need to get confused by that. As an aside, as you're paying tax on your parents investments i hope you're getting the income.

Etax will also rollover data from you previous tax return such as depreciation schedules. I find that to be a bit easier than the previous notebook that I used to maintain.

 

[Homer]

Wouldn't it have made more sense for the ATO to spend the $5M+ on turning "e-tax" into an online app? I don't know too many companies outside of the banks and very large (and old) corporates still planning to write and deploy software in this way.