How to Lodge a Business Tax Return: Channels, Due Dates and What Changes by Structure

For Australian businesses, how you lodge a business tax return depends mainly on your business structure. A sole trader lodges business income inside their individual return, and can use myTax. A partnership or trust lodges its own return, and the partners or beneficiaries then lodge theirs. A company lodges a separate return that must go through SBR-enabled software or a registered tax agent — it can’t be lodged directly in Online services for business. The due dates differ too, and using a registered agent changes them again.

This article contains general information only and isn’t personal tax advice. Every business is different, so speak with a registered tax agent or accountant about your specific situation.

On this page

• What tax return does each business structure lodge?
• Sole traders
• Partnerships
• Trusts
• Companies
• The four lodgment channels
• Getting access: myGov, myID and RAM
• Due dates if you lodge it yourself
• Due dates if you use a registered tax agent
• Lodging and paying are two different things
• What happens after you lodge
• Fixing a mistake after lodgment
• If you’re already behind

What tax return does each business structure lodge?

A business tax return works differently depending on the structure. That affects what gets lodged, which channel you use, the due date and who ultimately pays the tax.

Partnerships and trusts are where things can get confusing. Both entities lodge a return, but neither generally pays income tax on the distributed amount. The return reports how income was divided, and the tax lands with the partners or beneficiaries. Two lodgments, one layer of tax.

Sole traders

A sole trader isn’t a separate legal entity from the person running it, so there’s no separate business return. Business income and deductions go into your individual tax return through the supplementary section and the business and professional items schedule.

• Channel: myTax, through a myGov account linked to the ATO, or a registered tax agent.
• What you’ll need: your ABN and details of your main business activity, alongside the usual individual information.
• The trap: you must lodge even if your income is below the tax-free threshold. A quiet year, a start-up year, or a year where the business made a loss doesn’t remove the obligation.

A sole trader who earned very little from the business and had no other income can reasonably assume there’s nothing to report. There is, and lodging a loss year properly is also how the loss stays available.

Partnerships

A partnership lodges its own return under its own TFN, reporting the partnership’s income and deductions and setting out the distribution of net income among the partners. The partnership doesn’t pay income tax on that amount.

Each partner then reports their share in their own individual return and pays tax at their own marginal rate. Where a partner is a company or trust, the share flows into that entity’s return instead.

The document that matters most here isn’t a tax document at all — it’s the partnership agreement, or in its absence, the evidence of the actual profit-sharing arrangement. A distribution that doesn’t match the agreed basis is an issue that surfaces at lodgment and is awkward to unwind afterwards.

Trusts

A trust lodges a trust tax return, and beneficiaries who are presently entitled to trust income generally include their share in their own returns.

For trusts, one of the most important steps actually happens before the end of the financial year. A trustee resolution is only effective for determining who is assessed on the trust’s net income if it makes beneficiaries presently entitled by 30 June. Where no valid resolution exists, the trustee can be assessed at the top marginal rate.

So for a trust, lodgment is partly an exercise in producing evidence of a decision already made: the signed resolution dated on or before 30 June, the trust deed, and the records supporting any streaming of capital gains or franked distributions. Our business tax return checklist covers what to have ready.

Companies

A company is a separate legal entity and lodges its own return, paying tax at 25% if it’s a base rate entity or 30% otherwise.

Companies are quite different when it comes to how the return is lodged. A company return must be lodged online using standard business reporting (SBR)-enabled software, or through a registered tax agent. It cannot be lodged directly in Online services for business.

If your company doesn’t run SBR-enabled accounting software, a registered tax agent is the practical channel. It’s worth sorting this out well before the February deadline.

The four lodgment channels

Online services for business sits alongside these rather than among them. It’s where you manage activity statements, PAYG instalments, account balances and payment arrangements — essential to running the business’s tax affairs, just not the channel for the income tax return itself.

If you’re going the agent route, check them on the Tax Practitioners Board public register first. It shows current registration status, any conditions imposed on the registration, and sanctions on the public record. It takes about a minute and is a useful basic due-diligence step.

Getting access: myGov, myID and RAM

Access differs by channel, and setting it up can cause problems if it’s left until the last minute.

• Individuals and sole traders use a myGov account with an active link to the ATO.
• Businesses using Online services for business use a Digital ID — myID — together with Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM), which links that digital identity to the business’s ABN and controls who can act for the entity.

RAM setup is normally a one-off job done by the principal authority — typically a director, or the sole trader themselves. It involves identity verification, so it isn’t something that can be completed in the last hour before a deadline.

It’s also worth periodically checking who is currently authorised to act for your entity. Businesses that have had a bookkeeper, an office manager and two accountants over five years can still have all four authorised if nobody has removed anyone.

Due dates if you lodge it yourself

• Individuals and sole traders: 31 October.
• Companies self-preparing: generally 28 February for small companies — but if any prior year return is outstanding, the due date reverts to 31 October.

This matters because one overdue return can make the current return due much earlier than expected. It pulls the deadline forward by four months, so a business planning around late February may discover in November that it is already late.

Due dates for partnerships and trusts vary with circumstances, so confirm your entity’s specific date rather than assuming it matches the individual deadline.

Due dates if you use a registered tax agent

Registered agents work to a lodgment program that provides concessional due dates, spreading lodgments across the year rather than compressing them into October. For many individual and trust clients, that extends the due date as far as 15 May of the following year, with payment dates staggered based on when the return is lodged and processed. Company due dates run on their own schedule within the same program.

Two conditions attach to it:

1. You have to be on the agent’s client list in time. If you’re using a tax agent for the first time, or changing agents, contact them before 31 October to be included in their lodgment program. Engaging an agent in March doesn’t retrospectively grant a May due date.
2. Prior year returns need to be up to date. Outstanding earlier lodgments generally remove access to the concessional dates.

The first condition is the one many business owners miss. Someone who starts looking for an accountant in January may already have missed the date needed to access the later lodgment program deadline.

Lodging and paying are two different things

They have separate dates and separate consequences. Confusing the two can make an already difficult tax situation worse.

If the return is going to produce a bill you can’t immediately pay, lodging on time and then arranging payment is a materially better position than not lodging. Failure to lodge is treated separately from failure to pay, and the ATO will generally be in a better position to work with a business that is actively addressing the debt. Our guide to ATO payment plans covers how instalment arrangements work and what interest applies, and our guide to missed BAS deadlines covers the same principle on the activity statement side.

What happens after you lodge

• An assessment issues, confirming the amount payable or refundable.
• PAYG instalments already paid during the year are credited against the assessed liability, which is why a business that has been paying instalments may owe far less than the headline tax figure suggests — or be due a refund.
• PAYG instalment obligations may be adjusted going forward, based on the return just lodged. A strong year commonly produces higher instalments for the next one, so allow for them in your cash flow forecast.
• The payment date arrives separately from the lodgment date.

Growing businesses should watch the timing here. The tax bill for the year just finished and the increased instalments for the year underway can land close together. Our cash flow forecasting guide covers how to include both in a forward view.

Fixing a mistake after lodgment

Returns can be amended, and the amendment channel broadly follows the lodgment channel — myTax or myGov for individuals and sole traders, SBR-enabled software or your agent for other entities. Time limits apply to how far back an amendment can be made, and they vary with the taxpayer’s circumstances, so check the position for your entity rather than assuming a standard window.

The practical guidance is to act on it quickly. It is generally better to correct an error promptly than wait for the ATO to identify it through a review or data matching.

If you’re already behind

Overdue returns can create several knock-on problems: they pull forward the current year’s due date, remove access to an agent’s concessional program, and can eventually attract failure-to-lodge penalties calculated in penalty units for each 28-day period the return remains outstanding.

If you’re behind, start by getting the bookkeeping up to date. Returns can’t be prepared from an unreconciled file, and our catch-up bookkeeping guide covers how to scope that work. Then lodge the oldest outstanding return first and work forward, engaging an agent early so the remaining years can be brought into their program.

A large backlog can be more manageable than it first appears. Some years may require significant reconstruction, while others may only need the existing records reconciled and lodged.

Quick recap: lodging by structure

• Sole trader — individual return with the business schedule, via myTax or an agent. Due 31 October if self-lodging.
• Partnership — partnership return plus each partner’s own return. Tax paid at partner level.
• Trust — trust return plus beneficiaries’ returns, with a resolution dated on or before 30 June.
• Company — separate return via SBR-enabled software or an agent, not Online services for business. Generally 28 February self-preparing, or 31 October with prior year returns outstanding.
• Access — myGov for individuals and sole traders; myID plus RAM for Online services for business.
• Using an agent — engage them before 31 October to access lodgment program dates up to 15 May.
• Check the agent on the TPB public register before engaging.
• Lodge on time even if you can’t pay, then arrange payment separately.

Getting help

For most small businesses, the lodgment channel isn’t really the decision — the preparation is. If the ledger is reconciled and the records are in order, lodging is a short task through any of the channels above. If it isn’t, the channel makes no difference.

If you’re based in Melbourne and would prefer the return handled for you, our tax accountant and small business accounting pages cover how we handle it. If you’re behind on lodgments or the bookkeeping needs work first, our catch-up bookkeeping service is the better starting point. And before any of it, our business tax return checklist sets out what to gather.

Official resources

• Income tax return — ATO
• Lodge your tax return online with myTax — ATO
• Online services for business — ATO
• Accessing online services with Digital ID and RAM — ATO
• Due dates for lodging and paying – income tax — ATO
• About the lodgment program — ATO
• Lodgment program due dates – individuals and trusts — ATO
• Lodgment program due dates – companies and super funds — ATO
• Trustee resolutions — ATO
• Public register — Tax Practitioners Board