ATO (tax office) payments by credit card

Hey everyone, so what is the best combo right now to pay my tax?

Is it pay.com.au with dragon? Or any other platform with Amex?

Thanks
 
I use the NAB Rewards Business Signature Card to pay ATO, for those of you who have a business...

"Earn points on ATO payments - Payments you make to the Australian Taxation Office will earn you NAB Reward Points at the same rate as regular everyday business purchases."

NAB Rewards Business Signature Card

With the NAB Rewards Business Signature Card you can earn and redeem NAB Rewards Points to exchange for a range of products and experiences. Apply Now.
www.nab.com.au www.nab.com.au

I pay ATO with this card for Virgin Australia points: 1.25 NAB pt/$1 = 0.625 VA points per $1, (but only 0.416 KF/AM points), uncapped + with a 15% VA transfer bonus = 0.719 VA pts + with a 20% VA transfer bonus = 0.75pts/$ - ATO cost is 0.72% per $, so almost 1pt per $ if you transfer during 15% transfer bonus offers.

(and hopefully one day VA will once again allow transfers from VA to SQ, and/or VA will add more overseas partners, or join * Alliance - I will just bank these points at NAB or VA for now)

FWIW, I use Amex Explorer wherever possible for non-ATO expenses, and WBC Altitude Black MC if they don't take Amex, so I can transfer points to SQ and CX etc as required.

Hope this helps
 
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mrtupperware said:
Im only holding Dragon and Platinum Charge. Looks like Sniip at 1.5% is the best option
Click to expand...

Sniip at 1.5% is a very good option if you have a Platinum Charge card. You're earning the equivalent of 1.125 airline miles per $1 spent, which works out to be a cost of 1.33 cents per airline mile.

If you are able to get a tax deduction on the Sniip fee, it's even better value.
 
I pay the ATO the fun way……. Use Amex Platinum (+1.25) to buy $100 Mastercard Gift Cards from Coles and Woolworths every-time they have a 2,000 pts deal per card (+10), you have to fork out an extra card fee for purchasing the cards (-5.95) and then pay the lowest ATO rate for an ATO debit card (-0.2), but all up, this is the best result for me. As Mattg says, the calculation comes in even better if you can tax deduct the card purchase fee.
I call it the fun way, as you have to pay a $3k bill by making 30 credit card transactions, but each time I put a gift card through it puts a smile on my face.
Note that for Coles, they normally limit their bonus to one card per flybuys account (so need a few family members to buy through), Woolworths normally allows up to 10 card purchase ….. more family members still help 😀
 
It’s quite labour intensive but was very rewarding in the ‘old’ days with the Platinum Edge earning 3 x FF points/$.

Nowadays been using the likes of Sniip to get it done - a lot less time investment though less rewarding even though I’m not quite sure what a FF point is worth to me in the post COVID environment.
 
I rang the ATO once and she saw all these $995 credits on my account. (the old red giftcard trick) and she asked me if I would like a payment plan as she thought I was having problems paying my BAS.

EDIT: these days, yep. sniip wins for time saved
 
daft009 said:
I rang the ATO once and she saw all these $995 credits on my account. (the old red giftcard trick) and she asked me if I would like a payment plan as she thought I was having problems paying my BAS.

EDIT: these days, yep. sniip wins for time saved
Click to expand...
Yep, Sniip is great for the simplicity of it all, but in the end still only putting 1.25 pts/dollar at best into you FF account...... gift cards while time consuming, are putting 11.25 pts/dollar in your account. Noted, that there is an extra fee to consider in the equation, making it closer to 5pts per dollar in actual return..... but there is still 11.25 pts per dollar arriving in your account and getting that for paying your tax, makes tax bills so much more fun than normal.
 
GrahamBRI said:
Yep, Sniip is great for the simplicity of it all, but in the end still only putting 1.25 pts/dollar at best into you FF account...... gift cards while time consuming, are putting 11.25 pts/dollar in your account. Noted, that there is an extra fee to consider in the equation, making it closer to 5pts per dollar in actual return..... but there is still 11.25 pts per dollar arriving in your account and getting that for paying your tax, makes tax bills so much more fun than normal.
Click to expand...
Hi @GrahamBRI I'm sorry if I've missed something. How do u get 11.25 points per dollar? That sounds like it might be worth the effort after all.
 
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albyd said:
Hi @GrahamBRI I'm sorry if I've missed something. How do u get 11.25 points per dollar? That sounds like it might be worth the effort after all.
Click to expand...
Look in your Coles/Woolworths catalogue each week, once every few months (typically around gift giving occasions like Xmas), you will see a promotion "Buy a $100 Coles Mastercard gift card, get 2000 points" as we know, 2,000 shopping points equals 1,000 frequent flyer points. So use your high earning credit card (1.25pts/dollar) to buy the $100 credit card and you will get 1000 FF points for the promotion and 125 pts from the credit card spend, ie. 1125 points for the $100 card, which is 11.25 points per dollar.
NOTE: the above is a simplistic view to show total earned is 11.25 pts per dollar and does NOT take into account the card purchase fee which is normally about $5.95 and is missing the ATO debit card fee of 20 cents per debit card transaction...... if you add this into the maths and base your FF points as worth 1 cent each, you will come in with a true earn rate (aka profit) of around 5 pts per dollar
 
GrahamBRI said:
Look in your Coles/Woolworths catalogue each week, once every few months (typically around gift giving occasions like Xmas), you will see a promotion "Buy a $100 Coles Mastercard gift card, get 2000 points" as we know, 2,000 shopping points equals 1,000 frequent flyer points. So use your high earning credit card (1.25pts/dollar) to buy the $100 credit card and you will get 1000 FF points for the promotion and 125 pts from the credit card spend, ie. 1125 points for the $100 card, which is 11.25 points per dollar.
NOTE: the above is a simplistic view to show total earned is 11.25 pts per dollar and does NOT take into account the card purchase fee which is normally about $5.95 and is missing the ATO debit card fee of 20 cents per debit card transaction...... if you add this into the maths and base your FF points as worth 1 cent each, you will come in with a true earn rate (aka profit) of around 5 pts per dollar
Click to expand...
worth it for small bills.
not so much for large bills if paying 10k, 100k, 1mil+ every quarter
 
daft009 said:
I rang the ATO once and she saw all these $995 credits on my account. (the old red giftcard trick) and she asked me if I would like a payment plan as she thought I was having problems paying my BAS.

EDIT: these days, yep. sniip wins for time saved
Click to expand...
Did the agent tell you that was excessive?
(Sorry, bad joke.. those were the days)
 
Anyone wanting to take over my pet tax investigator would be my friend.Ever since she asked the first questions around October last year we have had seafreight, airfreight ,road freight ,rail freight and wharf snafus, raw material delays, vendor delays and floods. All this during the Covid pandemic where we regularly work with less staff as they isolate.
i am thinking it is time she moved off to work on a tax fraudster or two.

You may be shocked to hear we have been paying cash for ATO, payroll tax and land tax as we are not starting to fly until July or later and despite our family members using some of our points and miles we still have many.

Now we have the chance of the other side of politics thinking a 51% marginal tax rate might fix things.
We need to manufacture more in Australia but our tax settings do not help us do that.
 
Yep all works fine for me. I wasn’t able to load Macquarie Visa and Beem said there were some cards that couldn’t be loaded. Nice little app while we can use it.
 
The recent EK hike has meant that we are way past the end of the beginning and very close to the beginning of the end.
I have always valued my points in terms of the cost of a J return to Europe.
Last week it broke through the $4k barrier on QF when I factor in the ATO card penalty and the YQ. Time for a new approach.
A new approach like Goldmember suggests - position in Europe and book a return from there. Or book outbound from SIN.
His example CDG-MEL return Singapore J - $3,500
I know it won't suit everyone, especially those who are not close to retirement or flexible with holidays ( or for that matter, those who don't have 3k to splash on a flight! ) but I'd much rather buy a revenue fare than a redemption fare for similar money.
Is anyone else prepping for the endgame of 'valueless points'?

Moreover, now that the fun is over and airlines have cottoned on to us (A)FF'ers, I'd like to start a new thread dedicated to our best ever ROI.
Where we can brag about how we F'd it to Europe for net $350 or J for -$18 etc! Those were, indeed, the days!

D
 

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