Deadline fast approaching for people who do their own taxes

The Australian Taxation office (ATO) has reminded taxpayers to lodge their taxes by the October 31 deadline or engage with a registered tax agent to avoid late lodgement penalties.

If you have simple tax affairs, you can lodge online, often in under 30 minutes, through the myGov portal. Most of the information you need will already be pre-filled – just check it's correct, add any additional income and claim your legal deductions.

The ATO has also stressed the importance of making sure any claims you make for work-related expenses are accurate, which means you can't just automatically copy/paste the previous year's claims.

“We want people to get their deductions right on the first go and claim what they are entitled to – nothing more, nothing less. We have a series of 40 occupation and industry-specific guides which you should have a look at,” ATO assistant commissioner Rob Thomson said.

“It may be tempting to boost your refund by leaving out income or inflating your deductions – but remember, we have sophisticated data analytics that will pick up returns that look suspicious.”