Should I do my own tax return, or use a tax agent?
If you're an individual or a sole trader with a genuinely simple situation, yes, you can lodge it yourself through ATO Online Services for individuals and sole traders (accessed via myGov) using myTax. The catch is knowing the rules well enough to actually get it right. The moment your affairs have more than one moving part, a registered tax agent tends to save you more than the fee costs, and gives you months of extra time to lodge.
When self-lodging genuinely makes sense
Self-lodging suits a narrow but real group: one employer, standard PAYG income, no investments beyond a basic savings account, no rental property, no shares or crypto, no business income, and deductions you can actually substantiate without much judgement involved. If that's you, myTax is free, it's available through ATO Online Services linked to your myGov account, and most of your income data pre-fills automatically from mid to late July.
Sole traders can also self-lodge through the same online system, using the business and professional items section of the individual return. It works, but the moment there's GST, more than a couple of expense categories, or any uncertainty about what's deductible, the risk of getting it wrong rises fast, and unlike a salary return there's no employer withholding acting as a safety net.
Where DIY returns usually go wrong
The mistakes we see most often in self-prepared returns aren't dramatic, they're small, cumulative, and easy to make with the best of intentions: claiming a deduction and its substantiation record don't actually line up, double-claiming an expense that's already bundled into a flat rate, missing an offset entirely because nobody flagged it was available, or leaving out income the ATO already has on file, which triggers an amendment down the track. None of these require dishonesty. They just require not knowing the rule existed.
The two things a tax agent actually buys you
Time. Self-lodgers must lodge by 31 October each year (2 November for the 2025-26 year, since 31 October falls on a weekend). If you're registered with a tax agent before that date, your deadline moves out to roughly mid-May the following year. That's over six months of breathing room, useful if your records aren't ready, your year was complicated, or you're behind on a prior return.
A second set of eyes with your money on the line, not theirs. A good agent doesn't just data-enter your return, they know which deductions apply to your occupation, where the ATO is currently focused, and what a defensible claim actually looks like versus a risky one. The fee itself is tax-deductible the following year.
What we check before lodging, whether you come to us simple or complicated
Every return we prepare goes through the same pre-lodgement audit regardless of how straightforward it looks going in: income reconciled against everything the ATO already has on file, every deduction tested against the substantiation rules, offsets and exemptions checked for eligibility, and prior-year carry-forwards applied. A return that looks simple on the surface sometimes has one thing hiding in it that changes the outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, through the same ATO Online Services system as an individual, using the business and professional items section. It's more exposed to error than a salary return, since there's no employer withholding acting as a check, so it suits genuinely simple trading activity rather than anything with GST or multiple income streams.
Principal, Numio Accountants | Registered Tax Agent 26342345 | Darwin, NT
Not sure which side of that line you fall on? Start your return with num.tax and we will tell you plainly if you'd have been fine doing it yourself, or what we found that you wouldn't have.