Your First Tax Return in Australia: What to Gather and How to Lodge

The first 30 June after you start work comes and goes without much fuss. Then July fills up with ads for tax returns, and someone at work is already planning what to do with their refund.

If you've never done one, the first question is whether you have to at all. For most people starting out, the answer sits on one line of the payslip.

Check whether you need to lodge

A tax return covers one financial year, from 1 July to 30 June, and you lodge it once the year is over. For an Australian resident, any tax withheld from your pay in that year means you need to lodge, even if you earned less than the $18,200 tax-free threshold. Lodging is also how tax you didn't owe comes back to you.

For 2025–26, income over $18,200 after deductions is another reason to lodge, and so is running a business, which can include a side hustle. Some Centrelink payments come with an income test of their own.

The ATO's Do I need to lodge? tool goes through every reason for your year. If it says you don't need to, you normally tell the ATO with a non-lodgment advice, which you can send through myTax.

A return is not a refund

Payroll works out the tax withheld one pay at a time, as an estimate of what your year will need. It's the tax line on your payslip. Your return adds up the whole year's income and deductions, then the ATO works out the tax on that and sets it beside what's already been paid. The answer comes back as a notice of assessment.

Notice of assessment

Tax on your taxable income

$1,400

Credit for tax already paid

$1,800

Refund

$400

Notice of assessment

Tax on your taxable income

$1,400

Credit for tax already paid

$1,100

Amount to pay

$300

Made-up amounts. A real notice has a few more lines.

A bill can catch people out when they had two jobs that both claimed the tax-free threshold, because each payroll withheld as if it were the only one. A HELP debt matters too. The year's compulsory repayment is worked out in the same assessment, so it can shrink a refund or add to a bill, and our HECS-HELP guide explains how it's calculated.

Gather the year's records

By late July, the ATO prefills most of what's been reported about your year, so your part is checking it and adding what it can't know.

Prefilled by late July

• Pay and tax withheldEach employer's income statement
• Bank interestEach bank you have an account with
• Centrelink paymentsServices Australia
• Private health insuranceYour health fund, if you have one

Yours to add

• Work expensesWith a receipt or record for each
• Income the prefill missedSuch as pay from a side hustle
• Your bank accountBSB and account number for a refund

Your income statement is each employer's summary of your pay and tax for the year. It sits in myGov once your account is linked to the ATO, and most employers finalise it by 14 July. Wait until it says Tax ready, because the amounts can still change before then. An empty prefill line doesn't mean you earned nothing there, so check it against your payslips.

Clova, our budgeting app, shows your accounts from every bank in one view, so the year's pays and interest are in one place when you check them against the prefill.

Work expenses count only when you paid for them yourself, weren't reimbursed and kept a record of their work use. Our guide to tax deductions goes through what that can cover.

Lodge once your income is tax ready

You can lodge from 1 July, but there's no prize for going first. Lodging before the prefill has arrived is how amounts get missed, so late July is a better time to start. If you're lodging yourself, the deadline is 31 October, or the next business day when that falls on a weekend. Our guide to tax return deadlines covers what to do if that date has passed.

Start a first return in myTax, the ATO's free online return, because the prefill does most of the work and you get to see your own year laid out. You reach it through myGov once it's linked to the ATO, with nothing to download. Some paid websites use similar names, so start from myGov itself. Before you submit, myTax shows an estimate of your refund or bill, and a lodgment receipt arrives by email afterwards.

If you'd like someone beside you, the ATO's free Tax Help program helps people with simple tax affairs earning about $70,000 or less, generally from July to October. Appointments are on 13 28 61.

A registered tax agent can prepare and lodge the return for a fee. Check their name on the Tax Practitioners Board register first, since a friend's recommendation isn't a registration check. Most agents can lodge later than 31 October for clients who sign up before that date, so ask which date applies to you.

After you lodge

Once the ATO processes your return, your notice of assessment arrives in your myGov Inbox. It's the result to plan around, rather than the estimate you saw in myTax. A refund isn't spending money until it's in your account, and our guide to how long a tax refund takes explains the wait.

If the notice shows a bill and paying it all by the due date isn't possible, our guide to a tax bill you can't pay walks through the next steps.

Plan where a refund goes before it lands, so it doesn't melt into everyday spending. In Clova, a savings goal can hold it from the day it arrives.

The first return is the one where everything is new. By the next one, you'll know where your income statements live and which receipts are worth keeping as you go.

A note from us

A first tax return should feel like checking your own year, not decoding a form. Clova puts each purchase in a category, so a work purchase from March is quick to find when July comes around.