The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is reminding taxpayers who are yet to lodge their 2025-26 individual income tax returns that now is the time to do it.
With just over 2 weeks until the deadline, the ATO has received around 9 million income tax returns, with around 2 million selfpreparers still yet to lodge.
ATO Assistant Commissioner Anita Challen said taxpayers who are lodging their own return have until 11:59PM local time Monday 2 November to submit on time.
“Because the 31 October deadline falls on a weekend, taxpayers have a couple of extra days to lodge their return this year, but that doesn’t mean they should leave it to the last minute,” said Ms Challen.
“When people rush to lodge, they’re more likely to make mistakes or overlook important information,” she said.
“The ATO has done a lot of the heavy lifting by pre-filling most of the information that taxpayers need, and for taxpayers with straightforward affairs, it takes on average 8 minutes to lodge a return using myTax.”
“That’s less time than it takes many people to change the bedsheets or preheat the oven for dinner, so there’s no reason to wait until the countdown is over to lodge your return.”
Registered tax professionals are still required to lodge any overdue prior year returns for existing clients and add new clients to their client list by 31 October.