Waiting more than two weeks for tax return

Found this from ATO website. I hope this helps with any questions. I have been now waiting since the 9th July with Etax. Guess I am in the lucky 6% lol

Progress report - 2010 returns


30 July 2010

In the period from 1 July 2010 to 29 July 2010, the ATO has issued more than 1.25 million notices of assessment, including just over 1.04 million refunds.

We have received more than 2.09 million 2009-2010 returns since 1 July 2010; more than 600,000 of which have been received in the last five days.

Most of these notices of assessment did not start to issue until 9 July 2010, when full income tax return processing began for the 2010 financial year.

As was the case last year, this year we aim to process 94% of individuals' electronic returns within 14 days. Now that full processing is well underway, it is expected that most electronically lodged returns (whether lodged via e-tax or by a tax agent) will meet the 14 day time-frame.

We also expect that most paper returns should be processed within 42 days (we aim to process 80% of paper returns in 42 days).

This year the ATO has upgraded its technology to help detect over-stated or fraudulent claims for refunds. This has added two days to the processing time for all returns, but we still aim to meet our 14 and 42 day targets.

However, as usual, some returns will take longer than others, because, for example, more information is needed or there are errors in the return. Other examples of where it may take longer to process a return are where we need to check with Centrelink or the Child Support Agency.

Given the size of the technology and the scale of the changes, we always keep a close watch on how our systems are operating.

One area we were watching carefully was the processing of returns for taxpayers who have Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and Student Financial Supplement Scheme (SFSS) obligations, where delays had been experienced.

Processing of these returns commenced on 23 July 2010 and we do not expect any further delays with them.

Last Modified: Friday, 30 July 2010

its been 3 wks fr us:(

Thanks for the info. I can't even imagine the volume of tax returns they are getting - that sure isn't the job I'd want at this time of the year.

hmmm i was wondering why too i got all my FTB within a week but dh has not got his tax return and its been almost 4 weeks!
oh thank god we laybyed things lol.

We haven't even done ours yet, the other half hasn't got his group certificate OR the info in the e-tax pre-fill so we can't do it. Yay for Centrelink and their snappy posting out of GC's.

Thankyou for this info :)
My DH has HECS (or HELP as it's called on here) and we've been wondering what the heck is going on, but seeing they only started processing those on the 23rd of July, I'm not expecting it till next week sometime.
Wish it would hurry up though, I want the FTB to go in so I can get myself a new pair of pants! I've got 3 pairs, and two have big holes on the upper thigh!

I phoned the ATO this morning and the lady on the phone told me e-tax lodgements are going to take up to 30 days to process at the moment. That's ok, but you'd think they'd put that on their website, rather than saying 14 days.

There is some parts of the system that have gone much faster. To be honest there is no real speed to be gained by calling, but you should call anyway to find out if it is held up by lack of information. Simply put they wont help you until it has been 21 days, and your contact gives them another 21 days. You can't really speed it up at all.

They won't help us until 28 days after, which it has been tomorrow (well for mine it has been 5 weeks, but for some reason they have mine lodged on the same day as DH's even though I did mine a whole week beforehand).