Income

Work

Please tell us about all the  income you received for the financial year. Most employees now receive an income statement from the employer. This information is submitted directly to the ATO via Single Touch Payroll (STP) at the end of each financial year.

Some workers still receive payment summaries for payments outside of the STP system. 

Income statements can be accessed via your myGov account in the employment section. 

We recommend that you complete the tax file number verification process so that your income can be prefilled from data supplied to the ATO from your employer/s. This will be faster and more accurate than manually entering employer income information.

Did you have Salary and Wages?

Add your salary and wages information for the financial year. This can be found on your PAYG payment summary or myGov income statement from your employer.

If you do not have your PAYG payment summary or myGov income statement or your final payslip, please skip this section and add the details of employers at the bottom of this form. We should be able to get all this information from the ATO on your behalf.

Note: If you skip this section the tax refund estimate will not work on this form, but we will confirm your tax payable or refund prior to lodgment.

Types of employment allowances include:

• Car
• Tools
• Clothing or laundry
• Working conditions such as dirt, height, site or risk
• Meas, travel or entertainment

If an allowance is shown separately on your income statement, it must be included here.

Answering this Question

You will need your PAYG payment summary or myGov income statement – allowances.

Did you have Employer Lump Sum Payments?

Lump sum payments will be shown on your employer income statement. Lump sums are classified as lump sum A or B and relate to unused annual and long service leave payments.

Answering this Question

You will need your PAYG payment summary or myGov income statement – lump sum payments.

Did you have Employment Termination Payments?

Employment termination payments (ETPs) are payments you received on termination of employment. These payments appear on your income statement listed separately and are taxed differently from other salary and wage payments.

ETPs include:

1. Death benefits
2. Payments in lieu of notice
3. Unused rostered days off
4. Genuine redundancy (taxable portion)

Answering this Question

You will need your PAYG payment summary or myGov income statement – employment termination payment.

Note: do not show the following payments anywhere on your tax return:

• Foreign termination payments
• Directed termination payments
• ETPs you received as the trustee of a deceased estate

Did you have Australian Superannuation Income Stream?

Australian annuities (also called non-superannuation annuities) are paid to you by Australian life insurance companies and friendly societies.

Australian superannuation income streams (including lump sum in arrears amounts) are paid to you by Australian superannuation funds, retirement savings account (RSA) providers and life insurance companies.

Answering this question

You will need:

• for annuities
  • your PAYG payment summary – individual non-business which shows the amount of your annuity and its undeducted purchase price (UPP)
• for superannuation income streams
  • your PAYG payment summary – superannuation income stream.

Special Note

If you received a ‘taxable Australian superannuation lump sum payment’, do not show it here; show it at Australian superannuation lump sum payments.

Did you have Australian Superannuation Lump Sum Payments?

Australian superannuation lump sum payments or superannuation death benefit payments you received, including those paid by:

• superannuation funds
• approved deposit funds
• retirement savings account providers
• life insurance companies.

It also relates to:

• amounts we paid to you in respect of the superannuation guarantee charge or the superannuation holding accounts special account
• payments you received from the unclaimed money registers.

Answering this question

You will need your PAYG payment summary – superannuation lump sum. If you have not received it, contact your payer.

Special Note

Do not show on your tax return any:

• death benefit lump sum payments you received as a dependant of the deceased
• taxed element of a superannuation lump sum payment you received on or after your 60th birthday, unless it is a death benefit superannuation lump sum payment paid to you as a non-dependant
• amounts paid to you because you have a terminal medical condition.

Did you have Attributed Personal Services Income?

You must complete this item if you provided personal services and you:

• received a PAYG payment summary – business and personal services income showing an X against ‘Personal services attributed income’, or
• had personal services income attributed to you.

Answering this question

You will need:

• your PAYG payment summary – business and personal services income
• details of any other personal services income attributed to you.

If you do not have this information, contact the person who paid you.

Special Note

If you received personal services income as a sole trader, do not complete this item. You must complete question 14 (personal services income) in the individual tax return.

Rental Property

Did you earn rental income or was your property available for rent?

Complete this section if you earned income from a rental property, or it was available to rent during the year. Please only enter your share of the income and expenses below. If your ownership is 50%, then please enter 50% of the total income and expenses related to this property.

Special Note

Do not include rental income from properties located outside Australia.

Did you have Business Income during the financial year?

Attachments

Attach a copy of business income statement if applicable.

Did you trade shares during the financial year?

Please upload your share trading schemes here. 

Note: These are usually accessed through your trading platform, for example, CommSec, and can be found under the statement section, usually labelled financial year summary.

Employee Share Scheme

This question is about discounts on ‘employee share scheme interests’ (ESS interests) that you received under an employee share scheme. ESS interests are:

• shares
• stapled securities (provided at least one of the stapled interests is a share in a company)
• rights to acquire shares and stapled securities.

The ‘discount’ is the difference between the market value of the ESS interests and the amount you paid to acquire them.

The ESS interests can:

• be from an Australian company or a foreign company
• relate to your employment inside or outside Australia.

Did any of the following apply to you?

• You received a discount on ESS interests acquired under a ‘taxed-upfront scheme’.
• A ‘deferred taxing point’ occurred in respect of ESS interests you acquired at a discount under a ‘tax-deferred scheme’.

Answering this question

You will need your employee share scheme statement from each employer with whom you participated in an employee share scheme. If you do not have all your employee share scheme statements, contact your employer.

Australian Government Allowances

Newstart allowance | Youth allowance | Parenting Payment (Partnered) | Mature age allowance | Partner allowance | Sickness allowance | Special benefit | Widow allowance | Austudy payment

Check the PAYG summaries or letters you received from Services Australia or the government department that sent you money.

Australian Government Pensions

This can include Parenting Payment (Single), Aged Pension, Disability Support Pension, Career Payments and any other government pension you received.

Check the income summary or letters you received from Centrelink or the government department that sent you money.

If you received more than one, add additional pensions below.

Interest

Add up the interest you received from all bank accounts. Gross interest includes:

• interest from savings accounts, term deposits and cash management accounts
• interest we paid or credited to you
• interest from children’s accounts you opened or operated with funds that you used as if they were yours
• tax file number (TFN) amounts, that is, amounts withheld by financial institutions because you did not provide your TFN or Australian business number (ABN) to them.

Answering this question

You will need:

• your statements, passbooks and other documentation from your financial institutions and other sources that show the financial year’s interest income (TFN amounts are shown on your statement or document as ‘Commonwealth tax’ or ‘TFN withholding tax’)
• any notice of assessment or amended assessment you received from us during 2020–2021 that shows interest on early payments or interest on overpayments.

Special Note

• Interest credited to a first home saver account is not assessable income. Do not include it anywhere on your tax return.
• If you had a joint account, show only your share of the interest.
• Find this on your bank statements or online banking. 

Dividends

Dividends and distributions include:

• dividends applied under a dividend reinvestment plan
• dividends that were dealt with on your behalf
• bonus shares that qualify as dividends
• distributions by a corporate limited partnership
• dividends paid by a corporate unit trust, public trading trust or listed investment company

Answering this question

You will need your statements from each Australian company that paid you dividends or made distributions to you between 1 July and 30 June inclusive.

Special Note

• If you had any shares in joint names, show only your proportion of the dividends.
• Do not include dividends or a distribution on which family trust distribution tax has been paid.

Other Income

If you received any other income during the financial year that is not covered in previous sections in your tax return you should enter it in this Other Income section.

Types of other income may include (but are not limited to)

• Lump Sum E showing on your PAYG payment summary or myGov income statement.
• Royalties.
• Foreign exchange gains.
• Income from activities as a special professional. (E.g. Author of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, inventor, performing artist, production associate or active sportsperson.)
• Taxable scholarships, bursaries, grants or other educational awards.
• Benefits or prizes from investment-related lotteries and some game-show winnings.