Want to lodge your Overdue Tax Return?

Generally, you do not need to lodge a tax return if your income was less than the tax free threshold ($18,200 as of 2021) AND there was no tax withheld from your income. 

Contact us to see if you actually have an overdue tax return or whether you weren’t requried to submit one.

Find out here if you need to lodge a tax return or not. If you usually lodge a tax return but don’t have to for one or more years – we recommend that you submit a non-lodgement advice (we can do this for our clients) because otherwise the ATO may assume you needed to lodge a tax return and commence compliance actions.

If you are residing in Australia then you must lodge your tax return on or before the deadline unless your income is exempt or falls below the tax-free threshold limit. If you fail to lodge your tax return by this date, yIt may happen that you forget to lodge your income tax return for a particular financial year. If this happens then your tax return becomes overdue.

Overdue tax returns can be filed with the ATO however you might be penalised by the ATO for the delay in the lodgement of your tax return.

Yes, if you fail to pay your taxes on time, you may be liable for a ‘Failure To Lodge penalty’ from the ATO.

The penalty is charged @ 1 penalty unit for each period of 28 days or part thereof for which the return is overdue, up to a maximum of 5 penalty units. The value of one penalty unit is $210. This means that the minimum penalty that you can be charged if you delay your tax returns is $210 and the maximum penalty that can be levied is $1,050 i.e. 5 times the minimum penalty.

There are various factors that the ATO considers while charging a penalty for the overdue tax return. These include:

• Number of overdue tax returns;
• Your history of filing overdue tax returns; and
• The fact whether the taxpayer has not fulfilled the appeal to file their tax return or not.

Usually the penalty is applied automatically unless there was NIL tax payable or if there was a net refund from the Tax Return. We may be able to negotiate the penalty depending upon your circumstances.

Are you worried about a penalty notice from the ATO for not submitting your tax return on time? Our experts can get in touch with the ATO and may be able to request for a remission of the penalty in full or in part depending upon your circumstances. This may not be guaranteed and we will usually let you know up front whether there is a possibility of reducing your penalty or not. 

In addition to the penalty, the ATO may also seek legal prosecution for failing to lodge one or more tax returns. This can result in a maximum penalty of $9000 or up to 12 months of prison time!