The information in this article relates to the 2025–26 financial year (1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026) and reflects current Australian Taxation Office (ATO) guidelines. The lodgement window is open now, with a deadline of 31 October 2026. Tax rules can change, so it’s always worth checking the ATO’s website directly if you’re unsure about your specific situation.
What is a tax return?
A tax return is a form you lodge with the ATO that summarises how much you earned during the financial year and how much tax was taken out of your pay. The ATO uses that information to work out whether you’ve paid the right amount of tax over the course of the year.
The financial year runs from 1 July to 30 June, so the 2025–26 return covers everything you earned between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026. The return is how the ATO reconciles what was collected throughout the year with what you actually owed, and in many cases for young workers, that reconciliation results in a refund.
You might actually be owed money
When you start a job, your employer withholds tax from each pay and sends it to the ATO on your behalf through a system called PAYG withholding. The amount withheld is calculated based on an estimate of what you’ll earn over a full year. But if you only worked part of the year, picked up shifts casually, or earned less than expected, you may have had more tax withheld than you actually owed.
Lodging a return is how you claim that money back. The ATO calculates the difference between what was withheld and what you actually owed, and if you overpaid, you get a refund. This applies even if your total income for the year was below the tax-free threshold of $18,200, because tax can still be withheld from your pay regardless of what you ended up earning over the full year.
If you worked a part-time job for most of the year but your hours dropped significantly toward the end, there’s a good chance your employer was withholding tax based on a higher projected income than you actually ended up with. For a lot of casual and part-time workers, getting that difference back is one of the more practical reasons to lodge even when it feels optional.
Do you need to lodge one?
Whether you need to lodge depends on your individual circumstances. The general rule is that if your taxable income exceeded $18,200 for the year, you’re required to lodge. But the more common trigger for young workers in part-time or casual roles is simpler: if any tax was withheld from your pay during the year, you’ll likely need to lodge so the ATO can work out whether a refund is owed or your obligations are settled.
If you’re under 18
There’s a provision worth knowing about if you were under 18 on 30 June 2026. If your income came from a regular job as salary or wages, the standard $18,200 threshold applies. But if any of your income during 2025–26 came from sources other than salary or wages, such as interest on savings, dividends, or payments not classified as employment income, the lodgement threshold drops to just $416. This can catch young people off guard, particularly those who have money in savings accounts earning interest or who’ve received payments outside of a standard employment arrangement. You can check Reason 4 of the ATO’s 2026 lodgement guide to see exactly how it applies to your situation.
Rather than trying to work all of this out on your own, the ATO has a free online tool that walks you through a series of questions and gives you a clear answer based on your circumstances. It now covers the 2025–26 year and is the most reliable way to check, since it accounts for the various combinations of income type, age, and residency that affect the result.
If you work out that you don’t need to lodge, you still need to let the ATO know by submitting a non-lodgement advice. This tells the ATO you’ve checked and confirmed a return isn’t required. Skipping this step can result in the ATO assuming you simply missed your return and following up accordingly.
What about work through apps?
If you earn money doing deliveries, rideshare driving, odd jobs through apps like Airtasker, or any kind of freelance work, the tax rules are different to a standard job. There’s no employer automatically taking tax out of your payments, so the full amount lands in your account and the responsibility for sorting out what you owe sits with you.
Whatever you earn this way needs to be reported as income in your tax return. That applies regardless of how often you did it or how much you made, and it includes income earned alongside a regular job. If you did a few months of delivery shifts on the side of your part-time work, both sources of income need to appear in your return.
It’s also worth knowing that many major apps now report what their workers earn directly to the ATO. That means if you’ve been doing shifts through one of the bigger platforms, the ATO may already have some visibility of that income. Leaving it out of your return is more likely to create a problem than avoid one. If your situation involves several different income sources and you’re not sure how to handle it, a registered tax agent can help sort it out.
How to lodge
The most accessible option for most young people is myTax, the ATO’s free online lodgement tool accessed through a myGov account. The myTax 2026 return is open now. Before you start, it helps to have a few things on hand: your tax file number, your income statement from your employer (available through myGov once your employer has finalised their reporting), and details of any other income received during the year. For most straightforward situations involving a single employer and simple income, the process is guided and relatively quick, with most returns processed within two weeks.
The ATO pre-fills a lot of information for you once it’s been reported, including salary and wages data, bank interest, and government payments. Waiting a few weeks before lodging can mean more of that information is already filled in, which reduces the chance of needing to make corrections later.
The deadline for lodging your own return is 31 October 2026. If you’re expecting a refund, there’s no reason to wait. If your situation is more complex or you’d prefer help, a registered tax agent can lodge on your behalf, though they do charge a fee. To access their extended lodgement program, which allows additional time beyond October, you’ll need to engage one before the deadline.
What happens if you don’t?
If you’re required to lodge and don’t, the ATO can issue a failure to lodge penalty. It accumulates at a rate of one penalty unit for every 28 days the return is overdue, up to a maximum of five penalty units. The ATO generally issues a warning before applying a formal penalty, so you’d typically receive a notice to lodge first. But waiting for that notice isn’t a useful approach. The longer a return stays outstanding, the more complicated things tend to get.
Missing the deadline on a prior year return can also push forward your deadline for the current year, so falling behind has a way of compounding. If you’ve missed a return from a previous year, lodging it as soon as possible is the right move. The ATO does take into account whether you acted promptly when deciding whether to apply or reduce a penalty, so getting on top of it quickly matters.
Tax is manageable once you know where you stand
The main thing that makes tax feel overwhelming for young workers is not knowing what applies to them. Once you understand your obligations, the process is straightforward for most people in simple employment situations, and for many casual or part-time workers, it means money back.
If you want to learn more about tax and managing your money as a young person, we have plenty of other resources to help.
