ATO (tax office) payments by credit card

First time using Yak Pay this month. I opted to meet my min spend on my dragon card by pre-paying my BAS. Happy to see that points have been posted for the transaction. No sign up bonus points yet but hopefully the YP transaction qualifies.
 
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The effective 4.5% cashback on Amex Platinum Charge right now is a tempting option for large upcoming tax bills.
With B2Bpay's 2.2% fee for example: $100k tax payment = $2,200 fee = $1,595 after tax with a 27.5% tax rate = 450k Amex MR points = $4,500 credit on the card (can use it to cover a personal purchase to get full benefit) = roughly $3k 'profit'.
Alternatively 450k MR points = 225k QF/SQ miles = 0.7 cents/mile.
Normally I'd go for air miles but with 1.5 million SQ expiring in two years and millions more Amex and QF points already, I'm tempted to use the cash back option.
What to do ...
 
The effective 4.5% cashback on Amex Platinum Charge right now is a tempting option for large upcoming tax bills.
With B2Bpay's 2.2% fee for example: $100k tax payment = $2,200 fee = $1,595 after tax with a 27.5% tax rate = 450k Amex MR points = $4,500 credit on the card (can use it to cover a personal purchase to get full benefit) = roughly $3k 'profit'.
Alternatively 450k MR points = 225k QF/SQ miles = 0.7 cents/mile.
Normally I'd go for air miles but with 1.5 million SQ expiring in two years and millions more Amex and QF points already, I'm tempted to use the cash back option.
What to do ...

Thanks for the heads up, might look at getting the plat charge, currently using Amex ultimate for ATO
 
With B2Bpay's 2.2% fee for example: $100k tax payment = $2,200 fee = $1,595 after tax with a 27.5% tax rate = 450k Amex MR points = $4,500 credit on the card (can use it to cover a personal purchase to get full benefit) = roughly $3k 'profit'.


With $100K payment, better go with RewardPay 1.95% + GST
 
The effective 4.5% cashback on Amex Platinum Charge right now is a tempting option for large upcoming tax bills.
With B2Bpay's 2.2% fee for example: $100k tax payment = $2,200 fee = $1,595 after tax with a 27.5% tax rate = 450k Amex MR points = $4,500 credit on the card (can use it to cover a personal purchase to get full benefit) = roughly $3k 'profit'.
Alternatively 450k MR points = 225k QF/SQ miles = 0.7 cents/mile.
Normally I'd go for air miles but with 1.5 million SQ expiring in two years and millions more Amex and QF points already, I'm tempted to use the cash back option.
What to do ...

Bluechain is only 1.95% + gst
 
The effective 4.5% cashback on Amex Platinum Charge right now is a tempting option for large upcoming tax bills.
With B2Bpay's 2.2% fee for example: $100k tax payment = $2,200 fee = $1,595 after tax with a 27.5% tax rate = 450k Amex MR points = $4,500 credit on the card (can use it to cover a personal purchase to get full benefit) = roughly $3k 'profit'.
Alternatively 450k MR points = 225k QF/SQ miles = 0.7 cents/mile.
Normally I'd go for air miles but with 1.5 million SQ expiring in two years and millions more Amex and QF points already, I'm tempted to use the cash back option.
What to do ...
Thanks for laying it out so clearly - I'd never considered cash back option before but current promotion looks quite enticing - do my calculations make sense?

1) For $1000, you'd get 4500 AMEX points (Platinum) under current promotion, which translates to a cash back of $45, or in effect, 2 cents / point value

2) The pure financial decision (putting aside other considerations such as points accumulated and cash in hand considerations), is how this equation measures up to spending $19.50 / $1,000 (pre-tax figure using bluechain pre-GST rate of 1.95%), plus obtaining 2225 FF points.

3) Therefore, the financial decision depends on what value you think you can use your FF points for --- ie, if you calculate that on average, you get 2 cents / point value on FF points, then you'd be better off using cash-back during this promotion, and roughly, you'd want to get over 3 cents / FF point value to consider not using the cash-back (since @ 3 c / pt, 2225 pts = $66.75, minus $19.50 bluechain surcharge).

4) The equation changes slightly depending on if the $45 cash back is used for personal or business repayments (maybe 2.75 c / pt would be the equivalent value then?)
 
Some more maths, For the first time ever, using Amex Platinum Charge card is cheaper than using cash — iFLYflat - The Points Whisperer

Edit: for me personally, I'd have to see if a $6.5k fare to Europe on SQ is worth paying in cash or still save the points, and somehow factor in something for KF Deval.
Lol, I need a red wine now - that article would've made my post obsolete!!

Yes, I agree with iflyflat - if you can get 3.5 cents / point then it tips it back to keeping the points, BUT I guess the big unknown is a) when will we fly again and b) what will points be worth due to deval
 
Just got my account setup today
I signed up with them today. Tried to pay child support as a tester. They had to load it manually & warned me that they’d tag it as govt spend so I’d likely get half points. I didn’t end up proceeding - I can get half points for 1.45% with ATO direct. Anyone have any experience yet with points posting from spend with blue chain or any other payment processor?
 
I signed up with them today. Tried to pay child support as a tester. They had to load it manually & warned me that they’d tag it as govt spend so I’d likely get half points. I didn’t end up proceeding - I can get half points for 1.45% with ATO direct. Anyone have any experience yet with points posting from spend with blue chain or any other payment processor?
Whaaa what's the point then
 
That’s what I was thinking. Hoping I was misinformed by checking re others’ experience. He gave me a spiel about their ‘mission’ I respectfully can’t see why I’d want to pay more to achieve the same result.
 
Thanks for sharing that’s great info. I just made a tester payment on RewardPay after BC said I wouldn’t likely get full points. Will report back my experience but assuming will be ok. managed to find ABN on ABN Lookup site. Government departments seem to have heaps of them. RP seemed to accept the one I chose. Fingers crossed :)
 
if anyone wants to use Reward Pay for the quarterly ATO payments today, they are having software issues in some states. if it says Account Suspended, try using secure.rewardpay.com.au/login
 
I signed up with them today. Tried to pay child support as a tester. They had to load it manually & warned me that they’d tag it as govt spend so I’d likely get half points. I didn’t end up proceeding - I can get half points for 1.45% with ATO direct. Anyone have any experience yet with points posting from spend with blue chain or any other payment processor?
so i did a payment and yep.. got 1ppd and a bonus 1ppd
and "this transaction is not eligible for cashback with points"


Since ferni started I'd been using him. Post deval I hadn't used any payment processor.
Previous to ferni I used to used RP with AMEX and it was always 100% and never a transaction rejected.

might stick to payment processors for non-ATO I think
 
SQ has released miles flights for Singapore to New York for September so Kris Miles are making a comeback.
 
SQ has released miles flights for Singapore to New York for September so Kris Miles are making a comeback.
Wonder how long it will be before devaluations start being announced. I'm hoping not but I imagine they'll be looking for someone to share the pain of their $21b rescue package. Much like VA points are safe but they'll buy a lot less seats than they previously did. I hope I'm wrong.
 
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