The PAYG payment summary, once handed out on paper as a “group certificate,” is now called an income statement and sits inside your ATO online services account through myGov. Your employer reports your pay and tax to the ATO each payday under Single Touch Payroll, and after the financial year ends on 30 June your employer finalises the data. Once that happens the statement is marked “Tax ready” and you can use it to lodge your return.
How to Access Your Income Statement
You reach it through myGov or the ATO app. If you don’t already have a myGov account linked to the ATO, you’ll need to set that up first.1Australian Taxation Office. Access Your Income Statement
From there:
- Sign in to myGov
- Select ATO online services
- Select Employment
- Select Income statement
The figures update each pay run, so you can look at year-to-date totals any time. Before your employer finalises the data, the statement carries a “Not tax ready” label. Once finalised, it flips to “Tax ready” and the ATO drops a notification into your myGov inbox letting you know you can lodge.1Australian Taxation Office. Access Your Income Statement
What’s on It
The statement pulls together the figures the ATO needs to assess your tax for the year. Expect to see your employer’s ABN, your gross earnings before deductions, and the total tax withheld from your pay across the year. That withheld amount is credited against your final tax bill, so if too much came out, the excess comes back to you as a refund.
Two other figures often appear alongside wages. Reportable fringe benefits show up where the pre-grossed-up value exceeds $2,000. Reportable employer super contributions (RESC) cover extra super your employer pays at your direction, such as salary sacrifice, but not the compulsory super guarantee.2Australian Taxation Office. Identify Reportable Employer Super Contributions Neither is taxed as income directly, but both feed into income tests for things like the Medicare levy surcharge and family tax benefit.
The Medicare levy surcharge itself does not appear on your income statement. The ATO works it out separately when you lodge, drawing on the private health insurance statement from your insurer, and it lands on your notice of assessment together with the ordinary Medicare levy.3Australian Taxation Office. Medicare Levy Surcharge and Your Tax Return
If you left a job during the year and received a lump sum, it’s reported as an Employment Termination Payment with a code that drives how it’s taxed. Code R covers genuine redundancy, early retirement, invalidity, or compensation for personal injury or unfair dismissal, and receives more favourable tax treatment. Code O covers everything else, including golden handshakes, payments in lieu of notice, and unused sick leave payouts.4Australian Taxation Office. Employment Termination Payments
When It Becomes Tax Ready
The financial year ends on 30 June, and employers reporting through STP have until 14 July to make their finalisation declaration. That declaration is what switches your statement to “Tax ready.”5Australian Taxation Office. End-of-Year Finalisation Through STP The ATO uses that finalised data to pre-fill your return in myTax, so waiting until mid to late July usually means most of the work is already done for you when you go to lodge.
Closely held payees get a longer window. If you’re a family member or otherwise closely held payee of a small business that also has arm’s length staff, your employer’s finalisation deadline for your data is 30 September. If every payee is closely held, the deadline stretches to the due date of the payee’s individual tax return, ordinarily 31 October.6Australian Taxation Office. Small Employers – Closely Held (Related) Payees Arm’s length employees at the same business still fall under the 14 July deadline.
Lodging your own return without a tax agent, your due date is 31 October. Using a registered tax agent usually pushes that deadline out, sometimes well into the following year, depending on the agent’s ATO lodgement schedule.
If Your Statement Is Missing, Late, or Wrong
If 14 July has come and gone and yours still reads “Not tax ready,” start with your employer’s payroll team. It’s usually an oversight and a quick nudge sorts it out within days.
If your employer is unresponsive or no longer trading, you can still lodge using your own records. Pull together your payslips, bank statements showing pay deposits, and any other pay documentation, then use those to work out your income and tax withheld. The ATO allows you to lodge on that basis and expects you to report the issue through ATO online services or by phone.7Australian Taxation Office. Income Statement Not Tax Ready
If Your Employer Doesn’t Use STP
A small number of employers hold exemptions from STP reporting. If yours does, they must still give you a traditional payment summary on paper or electronically.8Australian Taxation Office. Exemptions from STP Reporting Nothing will appear in myGov in that case, so if you haven’t received one by mid-July, contact your payroll department directly.
Fixing Errors After You’ve Lodged
If your income statement is later corrected, or you spot a mistake in what you filed, you can request an amendment. Individuals generally have two years from the day after their notice of assessment issues, and you can lodge more than one amendment request within that window.9Australian Taxation Office. Time Limits on Tax Return Amendments
Miss the two years and your remaining option is a formal objection. The time limit is the same, but with an objection you can apply for an extension of time in certain circumstances.9Australian Taxation Office. Time Limits on Tax Return Amendments Don’t sit on a known error either way: interest keeps accruing on any tax you’ve underpaid until it’s fixed.