From July, you may get a refund on repayments made on your income compliance debts. This is if the debt was raised in full or in part using averaging of Australian Taxation Office (ATO) income information. All unpaid debts using averaged ATO income information will be revised to zero.
If you repaid an income compliance debt that didn’t apply averaged income information, you will not get a refund.
You don’t need to do anything now.
We’ll have more information about what you need to do to get your refund in the coming weeks.
Here’s what else we can tell you about the change announced on 29 May.
Quick facts
Refunds apply to all income compliance debts raised from our use of income averaging since 2015-16.
We’ve raised around 470,000 debts using income averaging in that time.
We’re refunding $721 million to people who have made repayments on these debts.
Refunds include any recovery fees and interest charges applied by us.
We will
Advise people on next steps.
Make refunds to all eligible people, including if you’ve had a tax refund garnisheed for debt repayments.
We won’t
Use refunds to repay other social security debts you might have.
Assess refunds as income for welfare payments.
Debt pause
You still need to repay any other Centrelink debts you have that didn’t involve income averaging. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we currently have a debt pause in place. You don’t need to repay any Centrelink debts right now. Read more about how we’re pausing some debt activity during the coronavirus pandemic.
Other debts
The annual balancing of family assistance Payments, like Family Tax Benefit and Child Care Subsidy, is not part of the Income Compliance Program. ‘Balancing’ is when a family’s estimated income is compared against their actual income after the end of the financial year to see if they were paid the right amount.
You can access information about your debts through your Centrelink online account via myGov and the Express Plus apps.
More information
We conduct a range of activities to maintain the integrity of the welfare payment system, from debt prevention to returning overpayments to Australian taxpayers.
Read more about our compliance program.
You can call 1800 061 838 if you need further assistance with income compliance.
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