Tax tax tax gah and family $$

[peanutter]

ok, I've been doing DH and my taxes for the past 13 years without any issues.

I've always intended to pass the buck on to my brother, sister in law or parents in law (all of whom are accountants) when it becomes complicated, but unfortunately I decided that it would still be simple this year, and now I'm almost finished and suddenly am concerned that I'm screwing it all up and we're all going to die!!!

please let me know:

1. Family Tax A and B are not taxable income;
2. Child care rebate has nothing to do with tax returns;
3. HECS repayments come out of taxable income and prefilling sorts that all out;
4. DH can't be my "dependent spouse" because we get Family Tax Benefit Part B;
5. my paid parental leave doesn't affect anything, because it's contractual and not the Government provided one;
6. the baby bonus isn't taxable; and
7. the medicare levy surcharge doesn't kick in until our household income exceeds $150K.

yes?

TIA

[Floweryfields]

Are you using etax? Because I think it would answer most of your questions or automatically work them out for you.
What I can answer from the list -
Income is anything either from a job, interest or rental, etc - so CCR is not taxable as it is a refund of half of what you've already paid out.
Parental leave would be included with any group certificate received from that position as it is still income
Yes to the medicare levy surcharge - again that should be automatically caluclated by etax.

[*Efjay*]

I'm confused by the hecs stuff too.

[briggsy's girl]

ftba and b don't get included as income
as far as i could find, if you get any ftbb, you can't claim a dependent spouse (which REALLY sucks, cos i have one of those too!)
HECS prefills and is calculated by etax

[peanutter]

yup, I'm using etax.

I just worry sometimes that the prefilling stuff might not be accurate, and I tend to do all my calculations by hand too, and double check the amounts from my budgeting spreadsheets and other docs.

They all seem to be correct so far - including our HECS amounts.

From what I've been able to find out (which matches what you guys are saying, which is great, thanks!) FTBA & FTBB & C/C & BB are all separate.

My PPL is included in my group certificate, which is all good.

And the medicare stuff seems right.

And boo to DH not being included as a dependent spouse ... oh well.

Ok. I'm going to let it sit for a few days, incase anything else occurs to us that we've missed.

And then I'll send it off!

Maybe I can keep doing these for a few more years

[*Efjay*]

when are you a dependent spouse?

[briggsy's girl]

there is an income limit around 19k but you can't have been entitled to ANY FTB part B at all

ETA - so basically a low income spouse when you have no kids OR your income is over 150k so you get no ftbb anyway

[*Efjay*]

oh ok thanks for that BG.