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Not too bad really for us overseas Australians.

If you took out a HECS (0% interest, indexed to inflation) loan for university study you still need to file taxes when resident overseas and continue making payments if you earn over the threshold.

If you are resident in Australia more then 6mths of the year you must complete an Australian tax return, but for most people that involves logging in around september and checking that all the auto-fills match up with what they expected.



You have to be able to prove you're a resident somewhere overseas though, and that you've broken your ties to Australia.

It's more complicated for digital nomads that don't really have a permanent place overseas.

Other than that though, agreed. AU taxation filing is not complicated.


They only just changed the laws a month ago to make it so opaque and vague about who qualifies as a tax-resident or not. It's basically a "if we want we will tax you" situation. The 183 day rule means little if you have even something as innocuous as a bank account back home now. It's a ridiculously stricter change that is entirely open to interpretation by the ATO.

https://www.mondaq.com/australia/income-tax/1070880/tax-resi...


Ugh, thats a headache of a read.

Sounds like they're just 'recommended' for now but won't take effect till next tax year at least.

Also sounds like its intended to catch people working 0% tax contracts in the middle east or digital nomading around east-asia till they need medical care. (still not a good reason to complicate things)


What you are describing is a pretty common requirement. Canada has a similar requirement, and while a passive bank account would in itself not be considered 'ties' to the country, an active one that sees use might.


That sounds nice. The tax preparation lobby in the US has so far prevented the IRS from pre-filling our tax returns.




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