$2.68 Billion in Tax Refunds Paid in 1 Month

In only 30 days, the total value of tax refunds processed by the Tax Office amounted to $2.68 billion ($3.76 billion if you included previous and future years) for the current financial year.

This valued comprised of over 1.2 million refunds issued and was an increase from $1.45 billion (653,000 issued refunds) or an injection of $1.23 billion back into the Australian economy via tax returns compared to the previous week.

This increase was consistent with last year where the value of funds issued between 20 July and 27 July increased by approximately $1.32 billion (from $1.03 billion to $2.35 billion).

So how much is $2.68 billion?

To give a perspective, in the 2012-13 budget, a fund of $2.8 billion was provided for Nationawide House Energy Rating Scheme, who's goal is to is to retain and improve building energy rating tools.

$2.68 billion is a little more than half of the proposed value of the 'Spreading the Benefits of the Boom' benefit scheme ($5 billion) targeted at low to middle income household.

Finally $10.9 billion was spent on online shopping over 12 months ending February this year in Australia, which is a little more than 4 times the value of refunds issued by the Australian Tax Office.

It will be interesting to see whether the effect of the refunds issued is evident in the retail spending figures for July and August - I suspect it will.

The average amount refunded per tax return for the 2011-2012 financial year decreased by more than $400 from the 16 July to 31 July from $2526 to $2171 for this year, whilst previous and future year tax refunds dropped by a similar amount of around $450 in the same period, however the amount refunded was more than double with the average being $5901 down to $5444.

Below are compiled tables of figures released by the ATO as progress reports for 2012. All figures were correct as of close of business on the dates specified. Current Year Tax Returns

Previous and Future Year Tax Returns