Wifey and I spent a good 60-70 hours this year in June/July/Aug over many weekends on our Income/Expenses spreadsheets, number crunching.
Almost every weekend was spent working through the tax deductible expenses. All the paper-work builtup over the year would be laid out on the study table and reconciled with our spreadsheet entry. With 12 properties under the belt we have by now devised a straight through process set in place to deal with the several Income/Expenses items so as not to miss any detail, however small.
Also we have bucketted the Tax deductions in terms of what is Claimable, and if claimable, whether it is:
a. claimable in the year of occurance (like council rates, maintenance exp)
b. over 5 years or (like LMI)
c. over a Period of years (like Depreciation)
d. At the time of Sale (like Capital Costs - such as Stamp Duty)
Having done all the hard-work we lodged our returns on E-Tax on the 20-Aug.
We were excited to see the ATO returns that we were entitled to receive. It came in at a sizeable a 38K Refund. Was happy. Uncork the Champagne!
After 5 weeks of waiting not having recieved my returns, I called in today to ATO to find out what was holding up. Apparently, they have "Processed" the returns but have not "Released" the payment into my bank account.
Apparently, since the returns were "so large" and unusual for a Personal Tax payer, they have decided to scrutinise the figures closely.
Okay Not a problem. I had expected this to come at some stage, but has come within our 5 year investing Journey.
Anyways I continued further and enquired about the next stages of this "scrutiny process". Apparently ATO don't have a "timeline" in which they need to complete the scrutiny.
OMG!!
A taxpayer has a timeline (sorry, deadline) for "When to Pay your tax" but the Tax-man has no such timeline as to "when to repay the over-paid Tax" back to the tax payer...
Some justice it is!
Almost every weekend was spent working through the tax deductible expenses. All the paper-work builtup over the year would be laid out on the study table and reconciled with our spreadsheet entry. With 12 properties under the belt we have by now devised a straight through process set in place to deal with the several Income/Expenses items so as not to miss any detail, however small.
Also we have bucketted the Tax deductions in terms of what is Claimable, and if claimable, whether it is:
a. claimable in the year of occurance (like council rates, maintenance exp)
b. over 5 years or (like LMI)
c. over a Period of years (like Depreciation)
d. At the time of Sale (like Capital Costs - such as Stamp Duty)
Having done all the hard-work we lodged our returns on E-Tax on the 20-Aug.
We were excited to see the ATO returns that we were entitled to receive. It came in at a sizeable a 38K Refund. Was happy. Uncork the Champagne!
After 5 weeks of waiting not having recieved my returns, I called in today to ATO to find out what was holding up. Apparently, they have "Processed" the returns but have not "Released" the payment into my bank account.
Apparently, since the returns were "so large" and unusual for a Personal Tax payer, they have decided to scrutinise the figures closely.
Okay Not a problem. I had expected this to come at some stage, but has come within our 5 year investing Journey.
Anyways I continued further and enquired about the next stages of this "scrutiny process". Apparently ATO don't have a "timeline" in which they need to complete the scrutiny.
OMG!!
A taxpayer has a timeline (sorry, deadline) for "When to Pay your tax" but the Tax-man has no such timeline as to "when to repay the over-paid Tax" back to the tax payer...
Some justice it is!
