Do your own tax return – it’s not that taxing

DO-it-yourself tax isn’t as scary as some might think.

For as long as I can remember I’ve forked out hundreds of dollars every year to pay an accountant to handle my tax affairs.

But thanks to the brilliant – and free – portal site myTax, I decided it was time to kiss Mr Taxman goodbye and give it a crack myself.

It was getting ridiculous how much I was spending every year for what really is only a lot of data entry.

I decided that the money would be better off in my own pocket.

And, yes, accountancy fees are tax deductible but you still have to cough up the cash to eventually get it back.

If you are good at data entry then you’re already halfway there.

Now this is not to say accountants aren’t important people – they can come in very handy when you’ve got complex financial matters to be handled.

They can be a wealth of knowledge. But for those of us who have relatively straightforward finances, for instance if you have shares, property, health insurance, online savings accounts and some work tax deductions, then I’d suggest giving your tax return a red-hot go yourself.

I logged into my myGov account – this is linked to the Australian Taxation Office portal where you can access myTax.

Once I was in it was fascinating to see how much information our friends at the ATO had already gathered on me.

This included my income, health insurance details and bank account interest – all thanks to their clever datamatching tools that can detect our personal information and drop it into myTax. So already plenty of my information was where it had to be. I didn’t have to lift a finger.

With some other financial matters to handle, it involved me pulling out my folder of neatly filed away receipts for the last financial year – a godsend when it comes to tax time.

And a good plan of attack was to have last year’s return handy so I could mimic it – my affairs hadn’t changed that much. And after an hour or so of data entry I’ve got to say I’m kicking myself that I didn’t start doing this sooner.

The myGov tax portal is smooth.

It’s easy to follow and really, any fool could give it a whirl.

There are plenty of online resources that can help you navigate the questions about what you can and can’t claim, particularly for any work-related expenses.

Good luck!