We’ve had a few cases recently where people have pushed us to lodge quickly for several different reasons.  However, wherever possible we prefer to lodge with the information final and correct.  There are a few reasons for this:

Under some sections of the tax act a lodgement is deemed to be an “election”.  So, we had one case where we were checking the tax treatment of an issue for our client and we urged him not to lodge until resolved. Even though his tax return was under demand with the ATO we communicated with them and kept them informed. When we had finalised our actions our client’s tax result was more than $100,000 better than if had lodged early.  Why?  Under this section of the act a lodgement was deemed to be making the election, so by not lodging we had waited until all the facts were clear and he could then make the correct lodgement and therefore the appropriate election.

So here at PFS we’ll stick with our “let’s get it right” philosophy.