My original tax return had been under review for almost 6 months, despite following up repeatedly and being ready and willing to supply anything and everything they'd possibly request - nothing, zilch. Out of work and urgently needing my refund, any refund even if not what I was actually owed, I decided I couldn't wait for the ATO to finally take an initial step and review whatever they wanted to review anymore and amended my return, so it was literally nothing but pre-fill data. Multiple calls to the ATO and not a single person was able to think outside a policy to acknowledge that yes, an amended return has possible turnaround time of 30 days but it would take all of about 2 seconds for anyone to see my return should now be merely a tick a flick, having done myself out of my full refund as nothing but prefill data was being used. Every explanation was just a regurgitation of the same 30 day policy garb, it didn't matter to them if that wasn't even a coherent response. Last week I had to request they prioritise it under financial hardship, I'm at my wits end...still nothing seems to be done, they weren't even accepting calls every time i tried getting in touch towards the end of last week. What is there I am able to do to escalate something like this, it seems no one at the ATO takes peoples situations seriously. The only other thing I can think to do is getting in contact with my local Federal MP's office.
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That's a really rough situation - I hope you can get some resolution soon
I know some people have had their returns held up by identity theft issues and sometimes doing an amendment while your original return is processing can actually slow things down further unfortunately
Have you had a look at the priority processing requirements? If you're struggling financially you might be able to make use of this Requesting priority processing | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)
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That's a really rough situation - I hope you can get some resolution soon
I know some people have had their returns held up by identity theft issues and sometimes doing an amendment while your original return is processing can actually slow things down further unfortunately
Have you had a look at the priority processing requirements? If you're struggling financially you might be able to make use of this Requesting priority processing | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)
It’s incredibly hard to get help from a real person. I tried to get help from the ATO for over 60 days, spent hours on the phone, raised two complaints and I often spoke to well meaning but untrained people who said ‘I’ll escalate it but there’s nothing I can do’. In the end I had to get my accountant to deal with my (pretty simple) request as I got so much conflicting and wrong information. He got a quick response, so maybe the answer is to pay $$$ For a tax accountant. I am a low income earner and next year I’ll be paying about 5% of my gross income to employ people to deal with the ATO because it’s all too difficult. Tax is complicated, and I so wish the ATO could provide phone support (or even drop in centres) for people who genuinely need help.
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