What is individual tax return preparation?
The return file built clean for your registered tax agent — who advises, lodges, and carries the agent-program extensions.
An individual tax return in Australia has two lodgment paths, and which one a person is on changes their deadline by more than six months. Self-lodging through myTax (via myGov) is due 31 October. Lodging through a TPB-registered tax agent gets the benefit of the agent lodgment program — commonly out to 15 May the following year — but only if the taxpayer is added to that agent's client list before 31 October. Miss that add-by date and the extension is gone for the year, not delayed; the return reverts to the standard deadline whether the agent is engaged or not. That single date is why the intake conversation for this service happens well before October, not the week of it.
The return itself is built from three layers of data that have to agree: what the ATO already knows (employer income via Single Touch Payroll, bank interest, dividends, private health insurance — usually pre-filled by late July), what the client can substantiate (work-related expenses, donations, managed fund distributions, with records that have to survive five years if the ATO ever asks), and what the return actually declares. Pre-fill is a starting point, not a finished return — an employer correction that lands late, a private health insurance statement that arrives after the return is drafted, or a deduction claimed without a receipt behind it are the differences between a clean return and one that gets flagged.
Who does what
Your registered tax agent advises and lodges; CapEasy prepares the reconciled file they lodge from.
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Individual tax return preparation, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your registered BAS or tax agent | Everything that carries a licence in Australia — rendered exactly as written: work out what goes on your bas, or advise you on it — under tasa 2009 that requires registration we do not hold. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Individual tax return preparation in Australia
A fee-charging preparer must be a TPB-registered tax agent — self-lodging needs no licence
Under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009, anyone who charges a fee to prepare or lodge someone else's tax return has to be a TPB-registered tax agent; unregistered preparation for a fee is a contravention the Tax Practitioners Board can pursue with civil penalties. Self-lodging through myTax needs no licence at all — the return is the taxpayer's own. We prepare the reconciled file either way; when a client is lodging through an agent, that agent reviews, advises on positions and lodges under their own registration.
The agent lodgment program extension depends on a date, not on engaging an agent generically
Being a client of a registered tax agent doesn't by itself move the deadline — the extension (commonly out to 15 May the following year for most clients) applies only if the client is added to that agent's client list before 31 October of the lodgment year. A client who signs up with an agent in November has already missed the window that would have bought them the extension; the standard 31 October deadline still applies to that year's return.
Deduction substantiation has to survive five years, not just the audit season it was claimed in
Work-related expenses, donations and managed fund distribution claims all need records kept for five years from the date the return was lodged, not five years from when the expense happened. A receipt that gets discarded once the refund lands is the single most common reason a straightforward deduction turns into a problem years later if the ATO's data-matching flags the return for review.
A sole trader files no separate business return — the schedule sits inside the individual return
Business income and deductible expenses for a sole trader go on a Business and professional items schedule attached to the same ATO individual return everyone else lodges — there is no distinct business ITR form the way there is for a partnership or company. That schedule still needs an active ABN behind it, GST registration if turnover has crossed $75,000 for the year, and any PAYG instalments already paid during the year offset against what the return calculates.
What your registered BAS or tax agent receives from us
- A pre-fill reconciliation — every ATO pre-filled figure (employer income via STP, bank interest, dividends, private health insurance) checked against payslips, statements and source documents.
- A deduction substantiation file — work-related expenses, donations and managed fund distributions matched to receipts and organised by category, ready for review.
- A PAYG instalment summary showing what's already been paid during the year, ready to offset against the return's calculated liability.
- For sole traders: the Business and professional items schedule data — business income, deductible expenses, and depreciation figures reconciled from the year's bookkeeping.
- A clean list of what remains unresolved — a missing statement, an unclear expense, a document still to arrive — flagged before the file goes to your agent, not discovered after.
- A tracked agent-list add-by date, confirmed with the client well ahead of 31 October so the agent lodgment program extension is never missed by accident.
