Purporting to be from the email address refund@ato.com.au it said I was entitled to a $250 refund on my Visa or Mastercard.

I knew it was fraudulent immediately, of course. The ATO doesn’t have my Yahoo! address, doesn’t communicate by unsolicited email and doesn’t give refunds on credit cards.

Also, I had seen a media release from the Tax Office on a different but related scam.

The Tax Office is warning people to be wary of a fraudulent email being circulated that claims to offer a 30% discount on their taxes. The email uses the Tax Office logo and the words ‘Cut Off Taxes Program (COTP) has been released – Join Now’ in the subject heading …

The subject heading in my email was “Message from the Australian Government”.

This article in The Age suggests the dodgy ATO emails are now common.

The scam ATO email, which promises a $250 bonus on top of a tax return, links the taxpayer to an online form that asks for personal details including ATM pin, credit card details and tax file number. Instead of submitting the form online, the website asks for a printed version to be mailed to an address.

While on one hand these scams are getting more sophisticated, they might suck more people in if they employed someone who speaks English.

My email asked me to complete the “formular”.

Translated from bureaucratic language that means political death.

It’s very hard to fathom why Malcolm Turnbull wants to delay millions of Australians receiving a timely handout from the government through its economic stimulus package.

I concede a personal interest in this; my family stands to receive about $5000.

Putting that interest aside, I actually think the package has some merit. I was less convinced about the December handout, because of the timing and the lack of an overall strategy.

This time there are more beneficiaries and a greater emphasis on infrastructure.

The GST is a consumption tax, which means the Federal and State Governments rely on people spending money to rake in tax revenue.

To put it bluntly, the states are stuffed if people aren’t spending. That has implications for schools, hospitals, police and other services.

Even if only two thirds of the $42 billion package gets spent, that promises to return $2.8 billion to governments in the form of tax.

Company tax revenue should also climb if the spending helps to maintain profit levels.

The Opposition has a legitimate role to scrutinise and criticise the package. I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on health, for example.

However, Turnbull’s ploy to block legislation in the Senate appears to be reckless and politically dumb.

The cartoon by Peter Broelman says it all.

Howard neither said nor did anything interesting. I didn’t expect him to triple somersault off a trampoline, but I did think he would make a significant announcement. That was not to be.

Howard and Alan Carpenter should both take a lesson from outgoing Victorian Premier Steve Bracks when it comes to publicity.

Bracks never visited a country town without making a major announcement or handing over money for a local project.

My tip was that Howard would announce solar city funding for Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Along with Alice Springs, we are the most logical place in Australia to run this program. So far we have been overlooked. There are not enough votes here, is my guess, and we are a safe seat.

The Prime Minister’s visit seemed to simply be a stopover on the way to Perth to raise funds for local MP Barry Haase and rally the troops. He didn’t shirk the issues of flow-through shares and zone tax rebates, but didn’t give any hope for either.

I stand to be shot down in flames here, but I fail to see the merit in flow-through shares. Their purpose is to encourage investment in exploration companies; those that are doing the hard work with no guarantee of return.

However, uranium explorers have no trouble attracting investment, even those operating in Western Australia where uranium can’t be mined!

Flow-through shares appear to be a mechanism to encourage speculation. Commodity prices and hyperbole are pretty good at that, without requiring government assistance.

I am strongly in favor of zone tax rebates though. Australia needs to decentralise and there should be incentives to encourage this.

The government has already set a precedent by giving cash to influence population through the baby bonus. It’s not a huge leap of logic to reward taxpayers who are prepared to live away from the coast.

Apart from persuading Peter Costello and Wayne Swan, the other difficulty is to define those areas that are eligible. It’s not my job to do that, but one suggestion might be to grant a rebate of $5000 per year to taxpayers who live more than 500km from a capital city and more than 300km from the coast.

That would rule out most of the growing regional cities in the eastern States and give a huge boost to places like Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Imagine the impact that would have on fly-in fly-out. Five thousand dollars each for a husband and wife would be a big incentive for them to live in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, rather than Perth.

The baby bonus worked. Bring on the “outback bonus”.

I have a company called Alpine News, which I established four years ago after struggling with tax liabilities under a sole-trader structure.

Alpine News took over my public relations business, Gorey Media. I also published a newspaper under the Alpine News banner for six months and more recently I’ve diversified into web services.

I’ve been using a nifty little program called Owl for my GST reporting. I record all invoices and expenses in the program, and until recently gave print-outs to my accountant, who compiled the Business Activity Statements (BAS).

These arrangements suited me while I was turning over significant amounts and working long hours.

However, now that I’m employed at Alpine Health, my company trading has diminished substantially and I can no longer justify paying an accountant to compile my BAS.

After my annual tax return was completed I applied to the Australian Tax Office for online services to submit my own quarterly reports electronically.

The system is highly secure, with a digital certificate in addition to password protection.

An ATO staff member rang me to confirm my details. I then received a CD, PIN, password and registration information in the mail.

Once it was installed the submission was a breeze. The actual reporting took me less than 15 minutes.

I no longer have the reassurance of independent eyes overseeing my report, but amendments can always be made, if neccesary, at the end of the financial year.

Full credit to the Tax Office for providing an efficient, secure and user-friendly service.