ACCOUNTING

Tax Returns

Prepare, review, and export Australian tax returns for sole traders and companies.

Overview

Tax Returns helps you prepare your annual Australian tax return directly from your Beeswax accounting data. The system automatically pulls figures from your Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, BAS statements, and payroll records, then maps them to the correct ATO form fields.

Beeswax supports two return types:

Return Type	ATO Form	Who It's For
Sole Trader	Individual Tax Return + Business Schedule	Sole traders and self-employed individuals
Company	Company Tax Return (Form 28)	Pty Ltd companies and other incorporated entities

Your business structure is set in your account's financial settings and determines which return type is generated.

Getting Started

Preflight Check

Before creating a tax return, Beeswax runs a preflight check to make sure your books are in order. The check looks for:

Check	Description
BAS Periods Locked	All BAS periods for the financial year should be lodged and locked
Bank Reconciliation	Bank accounts should be reconciled for the full year
Unallocated Transactions	Flags any bank transactions that haven't been allocated
Missing Tax Codes	Identifies transactions without a tax code assigned
Unmapped Accounts	Chart of account categories that haven't been mapped to ATO form fields

Issues are classified as blockers (must fix before proceeding) or warnings (can proceed but should review).

Creating a Return

Navigate to Accounting > Tax Returns
Click New Tax Return
Select the financial year (e.g. FY2025 = 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025)
Review the preflight check results
Click Create to generate the return

Beeswax will automatically populate the return with data from your accounts.

How Data Is Populated

When you create a tax return, Beeswax aggregates data from several sources:

Source	What It Provides	Reporting Basis Used
Profit & Loss	Income and expense totals grouped by account category	Accrual on a company return; Income Tax Reporting Basis on a sole trader return
Balance Sheet	Asset, liability, and equity balances (company returns)	Accrual
BAS / Tax Codes	GST collected and paid totals from tax-coded transactions	GST Reporting Basis
Payroll	Salary, wages, superannuation, and PAYG withholding	N/A
Tax Field Mappings	Rules that map your Chart of Accounts categories to specific ATO form fields	N/A

Important: On a sole trader return, income and expense figures use your Income Tax Reporting Basis setting. A company return's Item 6 is the profit in the company's accounts, on an accrual basis, like the balance sheet at Item 8. When the company is taxed on a cash basis, Item 7 converts it: what customers owed at the start of the year goes at label B (taxed this year, as it's paid) and what they owed at the end at label Q (taxed next year), both without GST. GST figures use your GST Reporting Basis setting. These are governed by separate legislation and operate completely independently.

It is very common for businesses to use Cash for BAS/GST and Accrual for income tax. Because the two methods can differ, the revenue and expense figures on your BAS may not match those on your tax return. This is expected and correct — the BAS report should not be used as a basis for preparing your tax return income and expense figures when your account uses different methods for each.

In Australia, GST reporting is governed by the GST Act 1999 and income tax by the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. This combination (Cash for BAS, Accrual for income tax) is the most popular choice for Australian small and medium businesses.

Each field shows a Source indicator:

Source	Meaning
Account	Pulled from your account settings (e.g. ABN, company name)
Auto	Calculated automatically from your financial data
Manual	Manually entered or overridden by you
blank	Not yet populated

Re-populating Data

If your financial data changes after creating the return (e.g. you allocate more bank transactions or update BAS periods), use the Re-populate Data action from the menu. This refreshes all auto-filled values with the latest data from your accounts.

Manual overrides are preserved — only auto-filled values are updated.

Sections

Section Status

Each section has a status indicating its review state:

Status	Icon	Meaning
Incomplete	Grey circle	No data populated yet
Auto-filled	Orange question mark	Populated with data but not yet reviewed
Manually Edited	Blue pencil	You've changed one or more fields from the auto-filled value
Confirmed	Green tick	You've reviewed and confirmed the section is correct

The sidebar navigation shows each section's status.

Sole Trader Return

Section	ATO Reference	Description
Salary or wages	Item 1	Employment income
Interest	Item 10	Bank interest income
Dividends	Item 11	Franked and unfranked dividends
Rent	Item 21	Rental income and deductions
Business income	Item P8	Net business income from the Business Schedule
Other income	Items 12-24	Capital gains, foreign income, and other
Work-related deductions	D1-D5	Car, travel, clothing, education, other work expenses
Other deductions	D6-D15	Interest, donations, tax agent fees, income protection
Business details	Business Schedule	ABN, business name, industry code
Business income	Business Schedule	Sales revenue and other business income
Business expenses	Business Schedule	All deductible business expenses
GST summary	GST	GST collected and paid
PAYG instalments	T7-T8	PAYG instalments paid during the year
Medicare levy	M1-M2	Medicare levy and surcharge
Tax calculation	Tax estimate	Final tax payable or refundable

Company Return

Section	ATO Reference	Description
Section A	Company details	ABN, TFN, company name, activity, base rate entity status
Section B — P&L	Profit & Loss	Revenue, cost of sales, expenses, net profit
Section B — Balance Sheet	Balance Sheet	Assets, liabilities, equity
Section C	Reconciliation	Adjustments from accounting profit to taxable income
Section D	Losses	Tax losses carried forward and applied
Section E	Capital gains	Capital gains and losses
Section G	Tax calculation	Company income tax calculation
Franking account	Franking	Franking credits and debits
Calculation statement	Labels A–S	Tax on taxable income, offsets, credits, PAYG instalments (K) and the amount payable or refundable (S)
GST summary	GST	GST collected and paid

Business Profile: Showing Only What Applies

A company return asks a dozen yes/no questions about the business, and hides the parts of the return that can't apply. A company with no overseas dealings, no trading stock and no rental property doesn't see the labels for them.

The questions:

Does the company use simplified depreciation (the small business pool)?
Does it hold trading stock or sell goods?
Does it have tax losses or capital losses from earlier years?
Does it pay dividends to its shareholders?
Has it lent money to its shareholders or their associates?
Is its aggregated turnover under $10 million?
Does it have any overseas income, payments, related parties, branches or interests?
Does it receive dividends, or distributions from trusts or partnerships?
Did it sell or dispose of a capital asset this year?
Does its income come mainly from one person's own skills or efforts?
Does it earn rent, or own buildings or structures?
Is it in a special scheme (research and development, forestry, primary production, mining, environmental protection or government industry payments)?

The first six are suggested from your books. Your answers are kept for the business and carried into the next year, and each year's return asks you to confirm them the first time you open it. Change them any time from the return's Actions menu → Business profile.

What hiding does and doesn't do

Nothing is removed from the return. Hidden labels are still on the return and the exported PDF, and no total changes.
A label with a figure is always shown, even if your answers say it doesn't apply, with a note saying so. Check it: either the figure or the answer is wrong.
The form's own yes/no questions are answered for you. Answering No to capital assets answers item 7 label G; No to one person's skills answers item 14; No to overseas dealings answers items 26 to 30.
Incentives that have ended are hidden by year: temporary full expensing and the small business technology investment boost from 2023-24, backing business investment from 2021-22.
Temporary measures carry a red information icon. A label that exists only for a time-limited incentive shows a red icon next to its name. Hover over it to see the dates the incentive covers and whether it applies to this return's year.
Rarely used labels stay out of the way until they hold a figure.

Click Show all fields in the sidebar, or the "fields that don't apply hidden" link under a section, to see everything.

Editing Values

Each section can be reviewed and edited:

Click on any field to update its value
Changes are saved automatically as you type
Edited fields are marked as Manual to distinguish them from auto-filled values
The original auto-filled value is preserved so you can always see what the system calculated
Clearing a manual override (deleting the value) reverts the field back to its auto-filled value

Some fields are calculated and cannot be edited directly — they are computed from other fields (e.g. total income, net profit, net GST). Each calculated field shows its formula underneath, with the figures in it, and updates as you type.

A field marked with a small ⓘ icon is reported to the ATO but changes no calculation on the return, such as franking account balances, asset counts, or wages at Item 8 label D. Hover over the icon to see why, and which field does carry that figure into the tax.

The amount payable (label S)

On a company return the bottom line is label S in the calculation statement, worked out the way the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) form does it:

S = T5 + G − H − I − K

T5 — tax payable, after the offsets at C, D, E and F
G — section 102AAM interest
H — eligible credits (H1 to H8, for example tax withheld where an ABN was not quoted at H3)
I — tax offset refunds
K — Pay As You Go (PAYG) income tax instalments raised for the year

A positive S is the amount payable. A negative S is a refund.

PAYG instalments go at label K, and only there. K is the total of the instalments on your activity statements for the year: label 5A on each one, less any 5B credit from varying them. If you varied your instalments, 5A is the varied amount, so use it rather than T7. Beeswax fills K in for you when it has the ATO's pre-issued activity statements for the year. Otherwise, enter it from your activity statements or your ATO online account.

On an individual return the bottom line is the estimated result: tax on taxable income, less tax offsets (not below nil), plus the Medicare levy and surcharge, less credits. The credits are tax withheld from wages (item 1), franking credits (11C), PAYG instalments (T7) and amounts withheld (T8).

Figures that disagree

When figures on the return disagree, Beeswax marks each field involved and lists the problems at the top of the return, for example:

K differs from the instalments on the ATO's activity statements
dividends are entered at Item 6, but there are no franking credits at Item 7 J
a withholding credit is claimed with no payments it was withheld from

Each problem must be fixed before the return can be finalised. Correct the figure, or, if it is right as it is, accept it and say why: for example, K differs from the ATO's statements because you varied your instalments. An acceptance holds only while the figures stay the same. If one of them changes, the problem comes back to be looked at again. While nothing disagrees, the list doesn't appear.

Some problems have only one right answer, and Beeswax fixes those itself whenever the return is saved or finalised:

a figure typed over a calculated total before totals became calculated is removed, because the return already ignores it
instalments left in the old PAYG instalments section move to K, if K is empty

Label C starts as the franking tax offset: the franking credits at Item 7 J, plus any from a New Zealand franking company at Item 7 C, so the credits added to income come off the tax too. If the company has other offsets of this kind, such as the foreign income tax offset, enter the total at C, and it replaces the starting figure. The offset brings the tax down to nil and no further. Credits above the tax can be converted to a tax loss, and Beeswax doesn't work that out for you.

The ATO's figures

Once the return is finalised, you can record the ATO's figures from its notice of assessment against it: choose the field (usually S) and enter the ATO's amount. Beeswax shows a warning when its own figure differs. Recording one never changes the return.

Finalised and lodged returns keep their figures

Once a return is finalised, its figures stand as they were. Beeswax doesn't work the totals out again, and each formula shown on the return and its PDF is the one recorded when you finalised it, even if Beeswax's calculations change later. Unlocking the return puts it back in draft, and the totals are then worked out afresh.

Returns finalised before 29 October 2026 show their figures as finalised, including any total you typed over by hand, but no formula, because Beeswax didn't record one then.

Known limitations

K is filled automatically only from the ATO's pre-issued activity statements, and Beeswax can't fetch those yet. Until it can, enter K yourself. Beeswax's own Business Activity Statement (BAS) records Goods and Services Tax and the tax withheld from wages, not income tax instalments.
Company returns started before 28 October 2026 had a separate PAYG instalments section, and the amount payable came from that section, not from K. That section has been removed. If it held a figure and K is empty, Beeswax moves the figure to K. If K holds a different figure, the return lists the difference for you to fix or accept.
Year-end checks list the entries behind a difference, but Beeswax doesn't repair older entries for you. Foreign-currency documents are not covered by the check that stops an unbalanced entry being finalised.
The individual estimate uses the 2024–25 resident tax rates and a flat 2% Medicare levy, with no low-income reduction. Tax offsets such as the low income tax offset are not calculated for you: enter them under Tax offsets.

Confirming Sections

Once you're satisfied with a section, click the Confirm button (green tick) to mark it as reviewed. Confirmed sections are locked from editing until you unconfirm them.

To make further changes to a confirmed section, click the Unconfirm button to unlock it. The section returns to its previous status (auto-filled or manually edited).

All sections must be confirmed before you can finalise the return.

Tax Field Mappings

Tax field mappings tell Beeswax how to map your Chart of Accounts categories to specific ATO form fields. For example, mapping your "Sales Revenue" account to the "Gross payments for goods and services" field on the Business Schedule.

Default mappings are generated automatically based on account names:
- For service-based businesses, all income accounts default to Gross Sales Revenue unless they match specific patterns (interest, dividends, refunds, gains, grants, insurance recoveries → Other Income)
- Expense accounts are matched by name to categories like Motor Vehicle, Rent, Repairs, Superannuation, etc.

You can customise mappings to suit your chart of accounts structure. When you re-populate a tax return, the mappings are regenerated to pick up any new accounts.

GST Summary

The GST Summary section pulls data from your tax-coded transactions for the financial year — the same data source used by the BAS / Tax Codes report.

Field	BAS comparison	Description
Total GST collected	1A — GST on sales	GST collected on income — from transactions with the "GST On Income" tax code
Total GST paid	1B — GST on purchases	GST paid on expenses (input tax credits) — from transactions with the "GST On Expenses" tax code
Net GST position	Internal net summary	Calculated: GST collected minus GST paid. Positive = you owe the ATO; negative = refund due

These are tax-return summary fields, not BAS lodgement instructions. On the official BAS, G1 means total sales, not GST collected; 1A is GST on sales and 1B is GST on purchases. See the ATO Simpler BAS reference.

If the GST fields show $0, check that:
- Your transactions have tax codes assigned (GST On Income / GST On Expenses)
- BAS periods have been created for the financial year
- Your BAS / Tax Codes report shows GST amounts for the same period

Reviewing a return

Beeswax does not run an automated review over your return. Reviewing is a
conversation: connect Claude Desktop (or another MCP client) to Beeswax and ask
the assistant to work through the return with you. It can read every figure and
the transactions behind it, compare against last year's return, and explain
what it finds. Where a figure needs explaining, it records a field note
against that row — the same note timeline you can add to yourself with the
note icon — and the return's Discussion panel keeps the back-and-forth in
one place. See Preparing a return with an AI assistant below.

Return Status

Tax returns move through these statuses:

Status	Description
Draft	Data populated, sections being reviewed and confirmed
Finalised	All sections confirmed and locked — ready for lodgement
Lodged	Submitted to the ATO

Finalising

To finalise a tax return, all sections must be confirmed first. Once finalised:
- The return is locked — no fields can be edited
- The return can be exported as PDF for lodgement

If you need to make corrections after finalising, use Unlock (unfinalise) to reopen the return for editing.

Progress

The progress bar in the sidebar shows what percentage of sections have been confirmed. A return is 100% complete when all sections are confirmed and ready for finalisation.

PDF Export

You can export your tax return as a PDF at any stage. The PDF is formatted to match the ATO form layout and includes:

All sections with ATO field references
Auto-filled vs manually entered indicators
Tax calculation summary

Click Export PDF from the actions menu to download.

Tip: Add ?debug=true to the URL to preview the PDF as HTML in your browser.

Permissions

Owners and Super Admins can create, edit, finalise, and export tax returns
Accountants can view and review tax returns and export PDFs
Managers, Basic users, and Clients cannot access tax returns

Note: Tax Returns are included with every paid plan and during the trial. Only available for Australian businesses.

Preparing a return with an AI assistant

If you've connected Claude Desktop (or another MCP client) to Beeswax, the whole
preparation workflow is available through the assistant with an API token that has
the tax_returns:read and tax_returns:write scopes: run the preflight checks,
create the return, refresh figures from your ledger, review each figure against
the transactions behind it, record notes explaining what needs explaining, adjust
fields, confirm each section, and finalise. Every field the assistant reads comes with its formula or the totals it feeds. When it changes a field that affects no calculation, Beeswax tells it so and names the field that does, and it can correct a figure that disagrees. Accepting a disagreement is yours to do on the web. See the
Connect Claude with MCP help page for setup. Lodging with the ATO still happens
outside Beeswax.

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