A straightforward individual tax return in Sydney typically costs between $150 and $400. Ours is $220 including GST. A sole trader return with an ABN runs $400 to $800 — ours is $550. Company or trust financial statements and the entity return generally start around $1,500 and rise steeply with complexity; ours start at $1,760. An SMSF costs $1,800 to $3,500 a year including the mandatory audit; ours is $2,200.
Why almost nobody publishes prices
The standard argument is that every client is different, so a fixed price would be misleading. There is something in that — a return with three rental properties and a capital gain is genuinely more work than a single payment summary.
But it is not the whole story. Hidden pricing lets a firm charge different clients differently for the same work, and it makes comparison difficult at exactly the moment you are trying to choose. We publish a full fee schedule because we would rather have the conversation about value than about whether the invoice is a surprise.
What our returns actually cost
- Individual tax return — from $220 incl. GST. Salary and wage income, work-related deductions, offsets.
- Investment property schedule — +$110 per property, added to the individual return.
- Sole trader return (ABN) — from $550. Business schedule, vehicle and tool deductions, PSI review.
- Company or trust accounts and return — from $1,760. Includes franking and Division 7A checks or distribution minutes.
- SMSF annual administration — from $2,200 per year, independent audit included.
- BAS — from $275 per quarter for a sole trader, $385 for a company or trust.
- Tax planning session — $220 for 60 minutes.
Every engagement is quoted as a fixed fee before work starts. We do not bill hourly, so a complicated phone call does not turn into a line item.
What actually drives the price up
Four things, in roughly this order of impact.
Number of entities. A company plus a trust plus two individual returns is four sets of accounts and four lodgements, not one bigger job. This is the single largest driver.
Investment properties. Each one adds a schedule: income, interest apportionment, repairs versus capital improvements, and a depreciation review. Hence the per-property fee.
State of your records. A reconciled Xero file costs less to work from than a shoebox. If your bookkeeping needs cleaning up first, that is quoted separately so you can see exactly what the mess is costing you.
Capital gains events. Selling a property, a parcel of shares or a business triggers cost-base work that can take longer than the rest of the return combined.
Is a cheap return a false economy?
Sometimes, but not always. If your affairs are genuinely simple — one employer, no investments, standard deductions — a $150 shopfront return will probably arrive at the same number we would. Paying more for that is not obviously wise.
The gap opens as soon as anything is non-standard. The cost of a missed depreciation schedule on a rental property, or a poorly structured business, is measured in thousands per year. That dwarfs any difference in preparation fee. The question is not what the return costs; it is whether the person preparing it knows enough to ask the right questions.
What a fee should include
Before you engage anyone, confirm the fee covers: preparation and lodgement, a review of your prior year for anything missed, and answering questions afterwards if the ATO queries something. Ours does. Not everyone’s does — some firms treat ATO correspondence as a separate billable matter, which you discover at the worst possible time.
Quick answers
An individual return typically costs between $150 and $400 depending on complexity and the firm. Spectrum Tax charges from $220 including GST, with an investment property schedule adding $110 per property. Sole trader returns start at $550.
Yes. Fees paid to a registered tax agent for managing your tax affairs are deductible in the year you pay them. The deduction goes in the following year’s return, at the “cost of managing tax affairs” label.
Because it is two documents, not one. A company return requires a full set of financial statements — profit and loss, balance sheet, equity reconciliation — prepared to accounting standards, plus the tax return itself. Franking account balances and Division 7A loan positions also have to be checked each year.
Both models exist. Larger firms often bill hourly, which means the final cost is unknown until the work is done. Spectrum Tax quotes a fixed fee agreed before work starts, so there is no open meter.
Want this looked at properly?
General guidance only goes so far. Book a consultation and we will apply it to your actual situation.