One million lodge tax return online in only five weeks

 More than one million people have already lodged their tax return online using e-tax, the Australian Taxation Office's (ATO's) free tax preparation and lodgement service. 

This brings the total number of lodgements since the launch of e-tax 1999 to 16 million, tax commissioner Michael D'Ascenzo said. 

"Continued improvements to the e-tax program and the introduction of the pre-filling service made it a popular choice for over 2.5 million self-preparers last year," D'Ascenzo said. 

Last year around 72 percent of e-tax users chose to pre-fill their return, allowing users of the service to partially complete their tax return using information the ATO has received from employers, financial institutions, Government agencies and other third parties. 

D'Ascenzo cautioned it remains the responsibility of the individual to review the information downloaded to ensure its accuracy.

This year, the ATO has already collected over 50 million pieces of third party information for the pre-filling service. New information includes parental leave payments, employee share schemes, tax-free government pensions, foreign employment income and information to help determine eligibility for the education tax refund. 

In addition, information on share disposals, provided to the ATO by share registries, has also become available as a trial. 

Most of the pre-filling information is expected to be accessible by mid-August, but e-tax users can subscribe to the alerts service, which will send a notification via short-message-service (SMS) or email when the information becomes available. 

The ATO recommends that e-tax should only be downloaded from www.ato.gov.au/etax, to protect privacy and guard against scams.