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Payment Options

Payment options

You can choose to get your Family Tax Benefit either:

Note: Customers receiving income support payments (such as Parenting Payment) must claim Family Tax Benefit via fortnightly instalment payments.

If you get your Family Tax Benefit paid fortnightly, there are a number of choices for how and when you can get your payments. All families are different so these choices have been designed to help you match your payments to your family's circumstances and to reduce the risk of being overpaid.

Lodging your tax returns

If you receive Family Tax Benefit, you and your current partner must lodge your tax return/s or tell the Family Assistance Office that you are not required to do so. If you do not do either of these things, any Family Tax Benefit you have received will become a debt and will have to be repaid. The Australian Taxation Office can tell you whether you are required to lodge a tax return.

What if I don’t lodge my tax return?

You may no longer receive your Family Tax Benefit on a fortnightly basis if you or your current partner:

This may also apply if you and your current partner have outstanding tax returns for past years when you were in receipt of Family Tax Benefit.

If you and your current partner continue to receive further debts as a result of not lodging your tax return/s, your family assistance payments may be cancelled. If your payments are cancelled, you and your current partner must lodge all outstanding tax returns for the years you were in receipt of Family Tax Benefit, advise the Family Assistance Office that you were not required to lodge one or repay in full all outstanding debts resulting from not lodging your tax returns. Once you have done this, you will need to lodge a new claim for Family Tax Benefit.

For more information refer to the Family Tax Benefit and Lodging Your Tax Return page.

Your payment options to reduce the risk of an overpayment

There are many options available to you to reduce your risk of an overpayment of Family Tax Benefit. The options provide you with the flexibility to adjust your payments as your income and family's circumstances change throughout the year. Selecting a payment option will help to reduce or recover any potential overpayment. You can change your payment option at any time.

Automatic adjustment of your Family Tax Benefit Payments

Generally Family Tax Benefit recipients can choose to receive their payments fortnightly through the Family Assistance Office or claim Family Tax Benefit as a lump sum payment at the end of the financial year.

If you receive FTB by fortnightly instalments and your family’s income estimate or circumstances change part way through the financial year, you may have already been paid too much.

Adjusting your future Family Tax Benefit payments

If you get Family Tax Benefit, you may have your ongoing Family Tax Beneit instalment payments adjusted automatically as required to avoid or reduce a projected Family Tax Benefit overpayment. This will apply to you if you receive your payment in fortnightly instalments and have notified an increased income estimate to the Family Assistance Office.

This automatic adjustment will not apply to Child Care Benefit. However, you can reduce the chance of overpayment by telling the Family Assistance Office to adjust your Child Care Benefit to account for an increase in income.

Your payment choices for Family Tax Benefit

Generally Family Tax Benefit recipients can choose to receive their payments fortnightly through the Family Assistance Office or claim Family Tax Benefit as a lump sum payment at the end of the financial year.

Deferring payment of one FTB fortnightly payment:

You may choose to receive one FTB payment (Part A or Part B) as a fortnightly payment and the other as a lump sum payment at the end of the financial year.

Your payment choices for FTB Part A

There are three different ways you can get Family Tax Benefit Part A:

Option 1 Base Rate of Family Tax Benefit Part A paid fortnightly

You may like to be paid the base rate of your Family Tax Benefit Part A fortnightly and receive the rest after the end of the financial year. This is a particularly good choice if your income is above the lower income threshold (that is the income limit at which you can receive the maximum rate of Family Tax Benefit Part A).

Please Note: If you pay private rent you can choose to receive any Rent Assistance you are entitled to either as a fortnightly payment or after the end of the financial year.

Option 2 - Receive all Family Tax Benefit Part A as an annual payment

If your income is extremely variable, or you are not confident that you can estimate your income accurately, this may be the best choice for you. You may also like to take this option if you have one child and your family's income is above the higher income threshold (that is the income limit at which the base rate of FTB Part A begins to reduce)

Option 3- Continue to receive Rent Assistance fortnightly and defer payment of more than base rate Family Tax Benefit Part A

If you receive rent assistance with more than base rate FTB Part A, you can choose to retain fortnightly payment of the rent assistance and receive base rate FTB Part A only and defer the rest of the more than base rate FTB Part A until the end of the financial year.

Option 4- Deferring FTB Part A other than rent assistance

If you receive rent assistance with your FTB Part A you are able to choose to retain fortnightly payment of your rent assistance and defer the payment of FTB Part A until the end of the year financial.

Your payment choices for Family Tax Benefit Part B

There are two different ways you can get Family Tax Benefit Part B.

Option 1 - All of your Family Tax Benefit Part B as a fortnightly payment

If you are a single parent or a stay-at-home parent with a partner who works full-time, you may like to receive all of your Family Tax Benefit Part B as a fortnightly payment. This is a particularly suitable choice if your partner earns less than the primary earner income limit and you do not expect to earn an income at any time during the financial year.

Option 2 – receive ALL Family Tax Benefit Part B as an annual payment

Taking all of your Family Tax Benefit Part B annually is a good choice for couple families where the primary earner’s income is close to the primary earner income limit and one member of the couple is out of the work force temporarily to care for the children. It is also a good choice if the lower income earner is not confident about estimating their income accurately.

Your payment choice for dependent children with income

If you have older children, you can be at risk of being overpaid if your child earns over the child income limit in the financial year. This limit applies to children aged between 5 and 15 who are not studying full-time, as well as all dependants aged between 16 and 24.

If your child does earn more than the child income limit, all of the Family Tax Benefit Part A paid for that child in that financial year will need to be repaid. If you also get Family Tax Benefit Part B and this is your only child, you will also need to repay all of the Family Tax Benefit Part B you received.

To reduce the risk of having to repay Family Tax Benefit for the child with income, the family can choose not to receive any Family Tax Benefit for that child throughout the financial year. At the end of the financial year, when the child's actual income is known, the family may receive a top-up payment if the child has earned less than child income limit.

Your payment choices for Child Care Benefit

For more information regarding how Child Care Benefit can be paid, see payment options.

How to elect or change a payment option

You can choose or change your payment option at any time.

For more information, contact us to discuss

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