Tax Office to start making tax bonus payments from April
Australian Tax Office is starting to send bonus payments to taxpayers starting early April. Payments of $900 will be sent to taxpayers who submitted their 2007-2008 tax return. This is a part of financial stimulus pushed by the Government.
Now, since there is only short time left to update financial details, the bank account update process is done by phone. The deadline for information update is mid-March, which is the end of next week. Address can be updated online, through a form. Link to that form is available at the link above.
Now, I tried to update my bank account details through the phone system. ATO will use whichever way was submitted with the tax return. So I wanted to switch from one bank to another and happily called 1300 686 636 after I found out it was an automated system. Thought everything is going to be done quickly since it's only numeric data I need to update. Hence, no worries - it is a great idea to have it updated over the phone.
But NO! The phone system is a voice recognition one. Oh, my God. Shivers went down my spine. But, alright, I thought, it must be good since they are going live with it. And so it started... Blah blah blah, I was saying my details for check-up and then one of the digits was recognized wrongly. At validation I said "No" but the system went on as if everything was alright. So I hung up and called again. This time I decided to keep the mouth shut and use the phone digits to type in the number. I found about this option only after the system could not understand what I said previously. Cool. Finally some stupid-old mechanical system that actually works.
Now, everything went well while it was only numerical details I needed to check. But, whoa, the system asked for my name. !#!#%@#%@#$% My last name is not even pronounceable in English. So the fun started. I never even got to my last name. The system could not recognize even my first name - which is Alen. It spelled Glen, Hellen, and these other names on and on. After a while the system got tired of me and put me through to a live person. Finally, everything was done within two minutes. Amen.
Australian Tax Office is starting to send bonus payments to taxpayers starting early April. Payments of $900 will be sent to taxpayers who submitted their 2007-2008 tax return. This is a part of financial stimulus pushed by the Government.
Now, since there is only short time left to update financial details, the bank account update process is done by phone. The deadline for information update is mid-March, which is the end of next week. Address can be updated online, through a form. Link to that form is available at the link above.
Now, I tried to update my bank account details through the phone system. ATO will use whichever way was submitted with the tax return. So I wanted to switch from one bank to another and happily called 1300 686 636 after I found out it was an automated system. Thought everything is going to be done quickly since it's only numeric data I need to update. Hence, no worries - it is a great idea to have it updated over the phone.
But NO! The phone system is a voice recognition one. Oh, my God. Shivers went down my spine. But, alright, I thought, it must be good since they are going live with it. And so it started... Blah blah blah, I was saying my details for check-up and then one of the digits was recognized wrongly. At validation I said "No" but the system went on as if everything was alright. So I hung up and called again. This time I decided to keep the mouth shut and use the phone digits to type in the number. I found about this option only after the system could not understand what I said previously. Cool. Finally some stupid-old mechanical system that actually works.
Now, everything went well while it was only numerical details I needed to check. But, whoa, the system asked for my name. !#!#%@#%@#$% My last name is not even pronounceable in English. So the fun started. I never even got to my last name. The system could not recognize even my first name - which is Alen. It spelled Glen, Hellen, and these other names on and on. After a while the system got tired of me and put me through to a live person. Finally, everything was done within two minutes. Amen.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment