After you lodge

Once the Australia Taxation Office (ATO) processes your tax return, you’ll get your notice of assessment. If you got Family Tax Benefit (FTB), Child Care Subsidy (CCS) or have a child support case, the ATO will send us your income details.

If you got FTB or CCS

We’ll balance your FTB and CCS when either:

• we get your income details from the ATO, and your partner’s if you have one
• you’ve told us you don’t need to lodge online.

We do this to make sure you got the right amount based on your income for the financial year.

We’ll check if you’re owed a top up when we balance your FTB or CCS payments. If you got FTB, we’ll also check if you’re eligible for any supplements. But before we pay you, we’ll make sure you don’t owe any money to us or the ATO.

Read more about understanding your balancing outcomes for:

• Family Tax Benefit
• Child Care Subsidy.

If you have child support

Once we get your income details from the ATO, we’ll send you your new child support assessment. If you estimated your income in the previous year, we’ll check this against your actual income. If your estimated income is less than your actual income, you may get a debt or overpayment.

Read more about what to do at tax time if you pay or receive child support.

If you get a tax refund and have a debt

We can use your tax refund to pay towards a debt you owe us, even if you already have a payment arrangement. This includes if you have Centrelink or child support debts.

If you get FTB or CCS, we may also recover any overpayments or existing Centrelink debts you have with us before paying you any top ups, supplements or lump sums. We can do this even if you have a payment arrangement.

Read more about how we recover debts at tax time.

If you don’t owe us any money and are getting a tax refund, the ATO will deposit the money into the bank account you gave them in your tax return.

Set yourself up for next financial year

Sometimes you may not get the outcome you were expecting. You can do these things to set yourself up for the next financial year:

• set up deduction for tax from your payment
• update your family income estimate
• update your CCS withholdings
• update your child support income or estimate if you pay or receive child support
• update your income and asset details if you get certain payments from us.

If you need more help

The ATO has more information on tax and superannuation you may need to know at tax time.

Read more about tax and superannuation for individuals and families on the ATO website.