You can claim the Education Tax Refund if the following applies to you:

• the Family Tax Benefit Part A was received by you for your children that are attending school (primary and secondary only, not tertiary). Basically if you and your partner are receiving under $100,000 combined income you are entitled to Family Tax Benefit Part A;
• you are caring for the child/ren for more than 35% of the time (that’s 4.2 months or 128 days a year);
• you stopped receiving FTB Part A because your child left school and earned too much money; or
• you were an independent student under 25 years old (which means you were probably on Austudy and had no other jobs).

Just remember that if your child only attended for one day of the year you are entitled to a full 6 months of rebate.

For example:

Lisa finished Grade 12 at the end of 2008 and started Uni in 2009.  She is entitled to receive 184 days of the rebate as she was at secondary school for the period (01 July 2008 to 31 December 2008).

Charlotte started Prep in 2009.  Her mother is entitled to 181 days of the rebate (01 January 2009 to 30 June 2009).

It would be good to point out that if you have a student that is going into Uni next year that they purchase any laptops, etc they will need for uni in the period July to December 2009.  That way they can claim the ETR for their secondary studies!!  Providing they do not earn over $12,287 for the year.

E-tax is an online `tax pack’ program.  If you have ever filled out a paper income tax return then you will be fine to do it online.  Follow this link to download the program directly from the ATO.  E-tax form This is the 2009 e-tax (for the year July 2008 to June 2009). Make sure you use the link provide as there are other e-tax programs on this website that you will have to pay for.

There are also previous years available if you have not completed them.  It is important that you use the correct e-tax for the correct year as different rules apply.  For example if you used 2008 e-tax for 2009 it won’t have the Education Tax Rebate section to fill out – and we don’t want to miss out on any money!!

I have used e-tax for the last few years and my return has always arrived within 1 week!! E-tax will always tell you at least 2 weeks though.

E-tax has an online help window that will pop up and give you extra information on the subject.  This is very handy as it tells you what you can claim but it can also be confusing at the same time. When you go to a section, the help window might tell you to go to another section, and then another. Just stay focused and remember what question you are trying to finish.

I found it useful to copy a section that relates to something I’m unsure of but want to claim and paste it into a word document, save it as tax 2009 (or whatever year you are working on) and that way if you ever have to explain why you claimed something in your tax return you can look up the information easier (and it will jog your memory).  Remember that the Taxation Commissioner gives his guarantee that if you honestly make a mistake he won’t penalise you for it (you will still however have to pay the money back!).

E-tax is free and if you are a wage or salary earner and can only claim the $300 (no receipts necessary) this is the best way to go as, around my area this sort of return is $95 if you get an accountant to do it!! Why pay $95 when you are only claiming $300. If you do this e-tax online yourself you can have all your money to keep. Why waste it on accountancy fees!!