You may get $470 as “low income offset” from Tax Return (Uber Eats drivers must read)

I made a profit of $392 from tax-return

Without going around the bush, here I say I made a profit of $392 by doing tax-return!

I paid $168 to a tax account (including fees for ABN) for tax-return, then got the refund of $560, which means a surplus of $392 ($560 – $392).

How could I get that amount of return? That is because I got $470 as low income offset which not so many working-holiday makers don’t know of.

I’m going to explain what that is and what I did to get it.

What is “tax-return” in the first place?

Tax-return is something that everyone who works in Australia need to do. If you don’t, then you may get punished.

You get money if you have paid more tax than needed. And you lose money if you have paid less tax  than needed.

This needs to be done during the period of 1 July – 31 October every year. 

How I did the tax-return

The accountant I used is「Ezy Tax Online」

I chose Ezy Tax Online because this was the almost only accountant who helps us in Japanese (I am Japanese). But surely, they help us in English as well.

They do the tax return for us for $58 if you worked the legal jobs such as restaurants, car-washes and farms.

Well, you can do the tax-return for jobs mentioned above by yourselves because you can find some information on the internet.

But the thing is, there is really few or no information for people who worked as ABN such as Uber Eats. I searched how to do the tax-return for ABN, but I really couldn’t find any information.

Ezy do the tax-return for ABN just for extra $50

So, I requested Ezy to do the tax return for ABN (Uber Eats), then they undertook it and what I paid was just extra $50 (which means a subtotal of $108)!

In this case, you need to get ABN number. You can get it by yourself online but again, there is not so much information about it! So, I requested Ezy to get the ABN number as well. I paid extra $60 for it.

For this tax-return for ABN, you don’t need to prepare tedious documents at all. What I did was just to download a PDF file from the Uber’s my page and submit it to Ezy.

I got “LOW INCOME OFFSET” ($470)!!

Then, why could I get the refund of $560? I will show you the breakdown of the return.

I worked local jobs (legal) such as restaurants, car-washes, and farms. Then, the total amount of tax that I needed to pay for them was roughly $2,210.

On the other hand, I had already paid $2,300 as tax until that time.

Which means, $90 (2,300 – 2,210) was the amount of refund I could get if that’s the all things to consider.

But actually, there is one important factor that only a few working-holiday makers know of. Which is, “low income offset“!!

If you could get this low income offset, then you can get as much as $445 (actually 470 considering tax offset). The condition for that is that “You are an Australian resident for income tax purposes.” and “Your taxable income is less than $66,667 or $37,000”. To be accepted as Australian resident, usually “you need to live in the same place and do the same job for over six months”, the government says.

In my case, I stayed at the same place just for five months and changed my job frequently, so, I thought I couldn’t be recognized as an Australian resident.

But for some reason, I was considered to be an Australian resident and could get the low income offset of $470! Which means, the total refund amount of $560!!

The page of the ATO about low income offset