zerosleeps

What a weird day it’s been. It’s certainly been different from Christmas in Scotland! I can’t say the day has really been all that unusual for a Sydney Saturday: got up, had breakfast, went for a swim, played Wii, had dinner, then went out for a coffee.

And that’s where we’re at. I got the coffee from a coffee shop on George Street at about 7pm: there weren’t many places that were closed between here and there. Market City - a fairly large shopping centre - was open, every restaurant I passed was open, chemists, electrical stores, the lot. At 7pm on Christmas day.

Now here’s something you don’t see every day. It’s called the Big Merino, and it’s in a wee town called Goulburn, which is between Sydney and Canberra.

Apparently, he’s made from concrete, and is about 15 metres tall.

You want more? Okay, you can climb up inside his belly. It’s dark, but it’s possible. The nice lady in the attached gift shop informed me that you used to be able to climb higher than you can today, and peer out across New South Wales through his eyes.

Not enough I hear you say? Well here’s the stinker: they moved the Big Merino in 2007 because Goulburn was bypassed. He now sits closer to the Hume Highway than he used to so tourists can see him as they whizz past. They put the thing on a lorry, and moved it.

Interesting and geeky fact about the clocks in Australia’s Parliament House: they’re all at exactly the same time, and they all tick at exactly the same time.

There are over 2,500 analogue clocks in the building apparently, so it doesn’t matter where you stand you can almost always see a clock - usually two or three.

It sounds so corny, but it really does feel like the building has a heartbeat when you find a quiet spot, and all those clocks are loudly ticking together.

Okay, this post falls under the heading of “might be useful to someone someday, myself included”.

As a member of staff at an Australian university, I am eligible for an account with UniSuper, who provide one of the many superannuation funds available here. From what I can gather, folks working in higher education in Australia get a pretty good deal when it comes to superannuation. Nice if you plan on retiring here, but what about folks like me who intend to flee the country at some point?

Here’s a watered-down summary of my understanding of things after attending a wee seminar held by UniSuper themselves.

• If you come to Australia as a temporary resident, and end up becoming a permanent resident, then normal superannuation rules apply - you’ve gotta be retired before you get anything back
• If you leave Australia as a temporary resident then you are eligible to receive the contents of your superannuation fund, with the following points being applicable:
  • Your visa must expire or be cancelled before you can apply to receive the funds
  • A “Departing Australia Superannuation Payment” form should be completed - this is what UniSuper call the form anyway
  • You’ve got to provide a forwarding address in your new country of residence, and valid bank details
  • Tax is paid on DASP payments: 35% on the taxable component of anything put into the super account (i.e. pretty much anything contributed by your employer, but not the monies paid voluntarily as salary sacrifice)

Now, you can choose to leave the super account in Australia, but it won’t accrue any interest, and will still be eligible for any administrative fees. And for some reason, New Zealand doesn’t come in to all of this: if you move from Australia to New Zealand, the regular Aussie rules apply.

So it turns out that all Australian residents have to complete a tax return every year, and for tax purposes I am considered to be an Australian resident. Eek.

The Australian Tax Office’s website is the main source of information and help here, but it’s a scary place, and I’m struggling to find out exactly what’s involved in making a return. I have managed to deduce that I can acquire a TaxPack from a newsagent, fill it in, and post it back to the ATO.

The other option is to use E-tax, which is an electronic version of the same thing.

But listen to this: the ATO’s implementation of an electronic tax return takes the form of a downloadable Windows application. What. The. Ho? I can’t even begin to imagine what was going through their minds when they decided this was a good idea. What about the tens of thousands of Australians who use an operating system other than Windows? What about accessibility for those who depend on screen readers and other tools which plug straight into web browsers? How do I know that (even if I did have a Windows box) I can trust this downloadable application not to bugger up my computer?

I think I might have to make a new category for this site, into which Australian banks, telecommunications providers, and now the ATO will be placed…

Update Monday 5th July 2010

Aw for pete sake. From the Australian Tax Office’s website regarding system requirements for the E-tax application:

Direct internet access (not via a proxy server)

So I won’t be able to run it from my work PC either, since every large corporation does the sensible thing and puts users behind proxy servers. Better get myself a TaxPack then. shudder

Update Tuesday 6th July 2010

I’ve never been one to pass up the opportunity for a moan, so here’s the latest instalment of the e-tax saga. I have just set up a virtual Windows machine, downloaded and installed the e-tax software, run it, and this is what I got:

Application Error Exception EConvertError in module etax2010.exe at 0000AD96. ‘1/2/2010’ is not a valid date.

Selecting ‘OK’ just quits the application.

Update Friday 9th July 2010

So the fix to the EConvertError thing is to change the system time format to DD/MM/YYYY: mine was at YYYY-MM-DD.

What utter fecking bollocks though. I’ve struggled over the last couple of days to understand the crappy terminology used throughout this crappy application, only to get to the end and be told I can’t lodge my tax return online anyway, because the ATO can’t verify my details.

I’ve to lodge my tax return by completing a TaxPack, and posting it to the ATO.

I’m so flamin’ hacked off right now.