If you owe us money, we may ask the Australian Taxation Office to help us get it back. We can ask them to garnishee your tax refund. This means they will withhold or give us some or all of your tax refund or available credit. If we do, we'll send you a letter to let you know.
You need to tell us if you or your partner don't need to lodge a tax return. If you have a myGov account that's linked to Centrelink, you can sign in to do this and confirm your income for 2021-22. If you don't have this set up, you'll need to use either your: Centrelink online account through myGov.
Centrelink do not normally tell you if they are investigating you. The initial phases of their investigation will be discreetly conducted by cross checking your financial information from your bank, ATO and even employer.
We may deduct money from your Centrelink payment to recover money you owe to other Australian Government departments.
We usually get this within 28 days of getting your Notice of Assessment from them. It's important to keep in mind that we balance FTB and CCS separately.
If you get Youth Allowance as a job seeker you can earn money and still get your payment. We'll start to reduce your payment if your income is more than $150 a fortnight. Your payment will reduce by 50 cents for each dollar of income you have between $150 and $250.
If you end up earning less than your family income estimate, we may not have paid you enough subsidy. If this happens, we'll pay any outstanding amount directly to you when we balance your payments.
Garnishing your refund
Federal law allows only state and federal government agencies (not individual or private creditors) to take your refund as payment toward a debt.
Not all debts are subject to a tax refund offset. To determine whether an offset will occur on a debt owed (other than federal tax), contact BFS's TOP call center at 800-304-3107 (800-877-8339 for TTY/TDD help).
You repay or start repaying the money by the due date
If you get a Centrelink payment, we'll deduct money from your payment. You don't need to do anything, but you can change how much we deduct. If you no longer get a Centrelink payment, you should either: repay the money in full.
If Centrelink suspect that you are claiming more social security benefits than you are entitled to they will investigate your situation. Centrelink may believe that you have not been honest with them because of routine data matching checks or due to getting a tip-off from a member of the public.
Centrelink has very wide powers to thoroughly investigate deposits that have been made into your account. For example, it has the power to obtain your information from other government agencies as well as accessing information from banks, building societies and credit union accounts.
What happens to Centrelink cheats? Courts treat these offences seriously. The penalties for Centrelink fraud range from 12 months to 10 years imprisonment. If you obtain a Centrelink benefit by deception, a prison sentence is a likely outcome, and you may be liable for the 10 years maximum sentence.
You may have to pay income tax on your taxable Centrelink payments.
Yes, but only if you owe a debt to them or another Commonwealth agency e.g. Child Support or Family Assistance. They will use the tax refund to go towards what you owe. The ATO can withhold your tax refunds even if you list these debts in your bankruptcy.
If you default on a federal student loan, your tax refunds can be taken to help cover what you owe. However, the government has paused this program and other collection activities. Federal student loan payments are also paused until as late as summer 2023 while lawsuits work their way through the courts.
Only federal student loans that are in default can be used by lenders to garnish your tax refunds. Your refund is safe from tax garnishment if you're in deferment, forbearance, or repayment. Loans eligible for student loan tax refund offset include: Direct Loans.
All or part of your refund may have been used (offset) to pay off past-due federal tax, state income tax, state unemployment compensation debts, child support, spousal support, or other federal nontax debts, such as student loans.
An incomplete return, an inaccurate return, an amended return, tax fraud, claiming tax credits, owing certain debts for which the government can take part or all of your refund, and sending your refund to the wrong bank due to an incorrect routing number are all reasons that a tax refund can be delayed.
If you filed on paper, it may take 6 months or more to process your tax return. For service delay details, see Status of Operations. The IRS issues more than 9 out of 10 refunds in less than 21 days. However, it's possible your tax return may require additional review and take longer.
If you make a mistake with your scheduled reporting, you can fix it. You can do this using your Centrelink online account or the Express Plus Centrelink mobile app. You will need to upload evidence of changes to pre-filled income that you already confirmed. This could be a new payslip.
You and your partner must have no more than $5,000 in combined readily available funds. This includes any liquid assets you can sell. Liquid assets include cash you have on hand, money you have in the bank and financial investments you have.
$5,500 if you're single with no dependants. $11,000 if have a partner or you're single with dependants.
Effect on your payment
If you are an eligible student or Australian Apprentice, we start to reduce your payment if your personal income is over $480 a fortnight. Personal income is your gross income. This is the income you get before any deductions, like tax. It doesn't include child support payments.