ATO (tax office) payments by credit card

[cove]

KLN do those Westpac points get halved when they move into real frequent flyer points and to which airline do they post?
The last time I saw 3 points a dollar from a Westpac card was in the opening period for their Amex Platinum Kris Flyer which posted 3 real Kris Flyer points!

 

[KLN]

Yes, they do halve when posting to FF.
of which i think there are about 6 or 7 different options.
i'[m happy with the 3/1 then 2/1 when posting to the FF. am lucky that it's mostly business on our spending which helps.

 

[Duffa]

I am loading Visa and MasterCards by BPay to pay various tax bills. I have multiple amounts due for chunky sums seeing the credit limits are smaller than the bills.
It's raining tax bills here!

Wish I had your BAS turnover, cove.
I can only manage about 50k all up, each quarter, which is under my credit limit, so no need to top up.
But I have all my statement periods for all my cards synced at the 24th of each month.
Pay BAS on 25th and get up to 55 days to pay off card.

 

[cove]

Synching your cards is a very nice idea for you Duffa. So many days credit!
Our BAS is monthly and then we have quarterly company taxes and quarterly personal taxes ....so thank goodness for frequent flyer points as we can run up zillions each month and double zillions each quarter.
One of the reasons we haven't retired is this travel game...we are as addicted as kids are on computer games.
Mrscove is going to London this week with one of her friends and because she doesn't drink alcohol the Dom Perignon and KRUG champagne will be a big ask for her friend to polish off.

 

[Flashback]

Synching your cards is a very nice idea for you Duffa. So many days credit!
Our BAS is monthly and then we have quarterly company taxes and quarterly personal taxes ....so thank goodness for frequent flyer points as we can run up zillions each month and double zillions each quarter.
One of the reasons we haven't retired is this travel game...we are as addicted as kids are on computer games.
Mrscove is going to London this week with one of her friends and because she doesn't drink alcohol the Dom Perignon and KRUG champagne will be a big ask for her friend to polish off.

I hope she has varying clothes packed with her, the weather has been all over the place! From chilly mornings (and days) to 'decent' mornings (and days, like today).

 

[cove]

Mrscove is doing the Hilton Canary Wharf again Flashware but only booked for 2 days then with a bit of luck it will be a walk across the road to the Pan building.

 

[cove]

Now my local post office owner is thinking I am a guru which of course I am not.
I hope she will be at work in between all the travelling.
Now that post office won't go up for sale any time soon!

 

[Deleted User]

Now my local post office owner is thinking I am a guru

...why?...?...?

 

[cove]

It could be something to do with the title of this thread I guess.

 

[Deleted User]

It could be something to do with the title of this thread I guess.

How silly of me, I should have known...

Cove you Da Man...!

 

[cove]

She was really stoked and mentioned it to Mrscove today. It's $4800 for 2 commas of frequent flyer points that so many dream about.

 

[cove]

American Express seem to have sophisticated tracking of expenditure software because I was asked questions about paying taxes on their cards to the Australian Taxation Office. I told them that they were no longer competitive price wise against Visa and MasterCard.
Because there is billions at stake it may go to management for a review of their ATO pricing. They seemed to be listening but Serfty may be correct in his view that American Express will not change their fee from 1.25% on paying the tax office. Currently their cost is too high except when compared with the Big 4 banks. Also because it takes quite an effort to pay taxes on a point a dollar Visa or MasterCard the switch may take a lot longer than one or two months.

 

[Brisgooner]

Hi Folks

I am deeply interested in this thread as many seem to be. I've just got my nice shiny new NAB Velocity Gold Card and I'd like to start racking up points paying my tax, but have spotted this little line in the NAB terms:

"transactions we decide are wholly or partly for a business or investment purpose..." are excluded from accruing points.

Does anyone else have a NAB Velocity Gold card that they've used for paying the ATO and accrued the points? I'd be keen to know before I pay the surcharge to make the payments.

 

[oz_mark]

American Express seem to have sophisticated tracking of expenditure software because I was asked questions about paying taxes on their cards to the Australian Taxation Office. I told them that they were no longer competitive price wise against Visa and MasterCard.
Because there is billions at stake it may go to management for a review of their ATO pricing. They seemed to be listening but Serfty may be correct in his view that American Express will not change their fee from 1.25% on paying the tax office. Currently their cost is too high except when compared with the Big 4 banks. Also because it takes quite an effort to pay taxes on a point a dollar Visa or MasterCard the switch may take a lot longer than one or two months.

There is only so much that Amex can do to reduce its fees, while at the same time keeping a fairly generous rewards program - to a large extent it's the fees that pay for those reward points.

Downward pressure on interchange rates have bene resposnible for the decrease in reward values from the major banks.

 

[Stephen65]

I'd be as happy as anyone if Amex reduced their fee but even at 1.25% it's still a worthwhile exercise. If you're earning at 1.5 MR per dollar and can tax deduct the fee it works out to 0.4375 cents per MR point and there is considerable flexibility in the ways you can use MR points. For our next planned trip I got about 5 cents per MR point value by converting to QFF points on a mixed FASA/JASA trip.

 

[cove]

There I was thinking the Big 4 Banks were just greedy coughs that made me want to be a shareholder of each.
I may hear something on that ATO processing fee next week.
Amex is 0.833 cents a point and Visa/MasterCard are 0.48 cents so they are 75% out of my Game (if you get a real point per dollar on Visa/MasterCard and a point and a half on Amex)
You can make 100,480 points for $480 today on Visa/MasterCard versus about 100,833 points for $833 on the best point and a half Amex cards.
Now let me think which one would one use.........??
By the way the Government is making all taxes personal if you have noticed their view on unpaid taxes of all types!

 

[Stephen65]

After tax the difference is 0.4375 versus 0.2520 cents per point. To me the advantages Amex has are:

- you can convert MR points into a large range of other programs including the 3-4 I actually use

- MR points last forever

- you can reap 50% more points via Amex, though at higher cost

- there is no issue about the CC company trying to enforce a "no business expenses/no government charges" rule and denying you a huge points haul

- I have a much higher limit on my Amex card than my visa card so it saves me the hassle of reloading

But I agree a reduction in the 1.25% would certainly be welcome!

 

[cove]

Stephen65 you could qualify for CitiSelecect that earns 1.333 points per dollar based on your tax rate. Now that is for non Qantas points with a choice and you can warehouse the points to avoid the points expiring.

 

[nonpop]

Just wanted to say "thumbs up" to this thread.
Has been a nice little side earner of points.

We value points at 1 point = 1 cent = worst case.
Regardless of the fact that we often use them for J class tix or sometimes Y to J upgrades, in both cases the value is much higher which is a bonus.
But I figure these points are not growing interest for me and they are not very 'liquid' vs cash in the bank and come with a higher risk (all our CCs do a direct sweep to QF). So just to be safe, we use the 1p=1c conversion especially if we have to pay a fee to get the points.

 

[angusburns]

Hi Folks

I am deeply interested in this thread as many seem to be. I've just got my nice shiny new NAB Velocity Gold Card and I'd like to start racking up points paying my tax, but have spotted this little line in the NAB terms:

"transactions we decide are wholly or partly for a business or investment purpose..." are excluded from accruing points.

Does anyone else have a NAB Velocity Gold card that they've used for paying the ATO and accrued the points? I'd be keen to know before I pay the surcharge to make the payments.

I have used my NAB Qantas Platinum Amex card to pay my personal tax, my wife's tax and my companies BAS and other taxes. Don't know how the credit card companies would be able to tell the difference.

Anyway, now I use my Citibank Citibusiness Visa card to make ATO payments - it costs $129/year and gives you 1.25 points per dollar up to $250,000 per year.
Has 'business' in the card name so should be OK to make business ATO payments!

Anyway, my personal NAB Visa only gives me 2 for 3 or 0.66 of a point per dollar at a cost of 0.48% and my NAB Amex gives me 1.5 for $1 but at a cost of 1.25% so not as good.

FWIW, when I try to BPay to the ATO via a bank web portal they said not allowed but when I go to the ATO credit card payment portal it goes through fine.

Good luck.