Mildly taxing

I must be getting lazier 'cos I've never left my tax return this late before. Yeah, I could get it done professionally, but as the son of a former bookkeeper, that just doesn't seem right. Besides, my situation's pretty simple - one source of income, negligible interest, one health fund and a bunch of deductable donations.

This year, the ATO made things easier for me - I qualified to use the special short version of the form, the details of which I was able to submit via a new 24-hour automated phone line (while watching a basketball game on TV :-) ).

It worked OK. I cracked the shizznits at one point after I accidentally skipped ahead a question and the system errored and abruptly hung up. Thankfully, when I stopped swearing and called back, it allowed me to restart from the same place.

Once I'd rattled off all the data, I was given a receipt number and an estimate of my refund. I always expect slightly more than I receive and, assuming the figure the pre-recorded voice gave is correct, 2005-2006 will be no exception. I don't mind - whenever the cheque turns up, it'll come in handy for something.