A few weeks into the new financial year and the ATO has just been caught up with crunching a couple of numbers on the condition of play with tax return numbers.

One discernible change from a similar time a year prior is the quantity of current year individual returns lodged on paper. In 2016, almost 15,000 returns had been finished for a paper shape, yet this year a mere 4,500 had been lodged the old fashioned way by July 18. The aggregate for both to that date was around a million and a half (1,408,897 at COB).

Perhaps the surprising element in this fact is that any paper is involved, and yet even non-individual returns continue to use ink on paper to a small degree (646 returns to July 18, but it was 1,191 last year). The total non-individual returns lodged were 17,205.

Self-preparers have so far made a small increase in number from a year ago, up by just over 142,000 taxpayers. The number of refunds issued to July 18 were 514,738, having a value of $1,588 million, with the ATO estimating an average tax refund of $3,084.

As for the ATO’s track record of answering the phone, show your clients the following fact — general taxpayer calls were answered 81% of the time in 5 minutes, but calls from tax practitioners were 91% of the time answered in 2 minutes.

For the tax practitioner telephone queue, the ATO’s call centre records show an average wait time of 27 seconds and an average handle time of 13 minutes.

The ATO likewise reminds practitioners that on the off chance that you encounter challenges in the tax agent portal, the initial step ought to be to check its troubleshooting page. "Issues that happen are distinguished on this page and updates on workarounds and resolutions are refreshed rapidly and frequently," the ATO says. "On the off chance that practitioners keep on having issues they should contact the helpdesk on 13 72 86 Fast Key Code 3."

Tax Store Accountants Camberwell.