You can, and the return is usually the most valuable one of your stay. Without a TFN on file your employer had to withhold 45% instead of 15%, and the difference comes back through the return.
How much does a no TFN period actually cost you?
Thirty cents in every dollar earned, for as long as it lasted. With a TFN recorded the working holiday rate of 15% applies to the first $45,000. Without one, 45% is withheld from the first dollar, and on a $1,000 week that is $300 held back rather than paid to you.
None of it is lost. Over withheld tax is credited when the return is lodged. What it costs meanwhile is cash flow, and it is why a no TFN year is usually the largest refund a working holiday maker sees.
Why can you not lodge without a TFN?
Because the TFN is the identifier that connects the employer's reported income to you. The ATO holds the reported wages and the withheld tax, but until a TFN exists to attach them to, there is no assessment to make.
This is why people abandon the money. They assume the tax vanished because they never had a number. It did not. It sits against the employer's reporting waiting to be matched, and applying for the TFN is what matches it. The application is free and can be made from overseas with identity verification.
What happens to the records if you kept nothing?
Most of what is needed already exists in ATO systems. Employers report wages and withholding under Single Touch Payroll, and that reporting is what the return is built from, so a shoebox of lost payslips is a smaller problem than it feels like.
The real problem is an employer who never reported at all, which happens in cash paying industries. Then the income has to be reconstructed, and our guide to cash in hand tax returns covers what evidence carries weight.
What if the year has already passed?
A prior financial year remains lodgeable. No unlodged year becomes uncollectable because time has gone by, and working holiday makers routinely lodge for a year they left the country in.
Two things change with time. Employer records get harder to chase where reporting was patchy, and identity verification gets slower from overseas. Neither closes the door, and the refund does not shrink because you waited.
What changes about the return if you have already left?
The mechanics are the same and the friction is different. A return can be lodged from anywhere, but the refund is paid to an Australian bank account, so an account closed on the way to the airport becomes the obstacle rather than the tax.
A first return, a newly issued TFN and an overseas address is the combination most likely to attract manual identity checking at the ATO. That is a delay rather than a rejection, and consistent documents shorten it.
What else is usually sitting in a no TFN year?
More than the withholding difference, because the years people work without a TFN are the years where nothing else was set up. Superannuation is the common one: contributions made without a TFN attached often sit unmatched in a fund or with the ATO, and they are still yours.
The Medicare levy exemption is the other. A German or Japanese passport holder generally is not entitled to Medicare, so the 2% levy should not apply, but it is only removed if it is claimed. Neither appears on any payslip.
How big is your own over withholding?
Recovering it is the straightforward part. The size of it, and how quickly you see it, depend on your own facts.
- How many weeks ran before your TFN reached the employer.
- Whether the employer reported your income under Single Touch Payroll.
- Whether the employer was registered with the ATO as a working holiday maker employer, since an unregistered one withholds at foreign resident rates even with a TFN on file.
- Whether an Australian bank account is still open to receive the refund.
- Whether super was paid to a fund that could not match it to you.
- Whether more than one financial year is involved, since each is a separate return.
The reconciliation is done as part of the working holiday tax return, and you can estimate your tax refund once you know roughly what was withheld.
Who should you actually hand your documents to?
People who worked without a TFN are the most targeted group in this audience, because they are already unsure how the system works. Backpacker Facebook groups and messaging communities carry a steady supply of people offering to sort your tax out.
Never send a TFN, passport or visa grant to anyone who cannot show you a registration on the government's public register of tax practitioners. A verifiable registration number is the whole test.