Project Description
What it is
TaxBuddy is a friendly, proactive and personalised guide that works alongside myTax. In two minutes it learns a little about your situation and gives you one clear next step that moves the ticker forward. It goes beyond information and provides interactive tools so you can take action easily. It is powered by AI with data integration and linking, designed for all Australians regardless of financial literacy.
Our core idea
Most problems are not complex calculations, they are information mismatches. TaxBuddy delivers the right information to the right person at the right moment in a clear, accessible way using trusted and effective digital services. With authenticated identity and verifiable, trusted data, it surfaces personalised insights so tax and super “just happen”. It also includes Ask TaxBuddy, an AI chatbot that explains things in plain English and opens the right tool or checklist when you ask.
Why it’s needed
Australians live diverse working lives: first-year nurses with agency shifts, international students on variable rosters, café baristas with weekend hours, FIFO sparkies between swings, retail casuals, rideshare drivers, grad teachers tutoring on the side. That is where issues arise, for example not enough PAYG withheld across multiple employers or missed superannuation top-ups. TaxBuddy addresses these gaps with human-centred, intuitive and inclusive guidance that reduces errors, lowers lodgement effort and compliance costs, and fosters willing participation.
What it does for you
Learns your context in two minutes with a few quick questions.
Shows one tailored recommendation first so you can move the ticker forward.
Gives the right micro-tool: Income Hub or Super Coach with more coming soon.
Lets you use Ask TaxBuddy for plain-English help and instant shortcuts.
Provides step-by-step actions, then sends you to your employer, super fund, or myTax to finish.
How it helps (real examples)
Aiden, warehouse plus café: TaxBuddy detects duplicate tax-free threshold settings and projects a shortfall. It recommends one fix, claim the threshold with the higher-paying job only, and add a few dollars per pay until updated. It also flags a small super top-up that could unlock a government match. One clear action, immediate benefit.
Maya, first-year nurse with weekend agency shifts and a HELP debt: Ask TaxBuddy explains HELP in simple terms, then opens the HELP tool with the words to give payroll and an optional temporary top-up amount to prevent a year-end bill.
Linh, international student with two casual roles: Ask TaxBuddy guides which employer should hold the threshold, shows a payslip checklist for super, and saves the steps as a short to-do list.
Trust, ethics, inclusion
Ethical AI aligned with public-sector data ethics and AI transparency: consent, data minimisation, plain-English “Why am I seeing this”, and no black boxes
Accessible by design: readable layouts, low-bandwidth mode, multilingual hints
Built to use integrated, event-based data, for example payroll-style signals, so guidance arrives before issues occur
Data and evidence
The prototype uses ATO Taxation Statistics, for example contributions by age and income and multi-payer patterns, and related sources from data.gov.au to target high-impact scenarios, then tests them with a small synthetic payroll feed.
In one line
TaxBuddy delivers the right information to the right people at the right time, clearly and accessibly, then gives interactive tools and an AI chatbot to act, so compliance is easy, financial wellbeing improves, and #Your-tax-just-happens.
Data Story
We analysed the data
We aggregated ATO Taxation Statistics 2022–23 (Individuals) across three lenses to find fixable, high-impact patterns:
Age cut: Table 23A (super contributions by age, sex, income). We computed the share making personal (voluntary) contributions and $ per person by age.
Place cut: Table 24A (super by state × age). We ranked all states/territories by the 18–24 voluntary-contribution rate.
Capacity cut: Table 22 (under-30s by total super balance). We checked how behaviour changes as balances rise.
For multiple incomes, we combined ATO guidance (the rule and the fix), ABS multiple job-holders (how many are exposed), and STP reporting (can we detect it in-year?).
We found these issues
1) Young people rarely top up super voluntarily
According to Table 23A, only a small slice of 18–24s make personal top-ups, and contribution behaviour rises steeply with age.
According to Table 24A, when we rank states, Queensland and the ACT lead on 18–24 participation, several states cluster in the middle, and WA is lowest — so geography matters.
According to Table 22, under-30s with larger existing balances are far more likely to contribute — timing nudges to capacity is key.
2) Multiple incomes often create PAYG shortfalls
According to ATO guidance on multiple income sources, a common mistake is claiming the tax-free threshold from more than one payer, which leads to under-withholding and a tax bill; the fix is to claim the threshold with one employer (usually the highest-paying) or ask another to withhold extra.
According to ABS multiple job-holders, around one million Australians hold more than one job in recent quarters — a sizable cohort exposed to this error.
According to STP reporting, employers send YTD pay and YTD tax each payday, so these problems are detectable in-year, not months later.
We dug deeper — the “why”
The barrier wasn’t hard maths; it was timing and targeting. The right rule or nudge wasn’t reaching the right person at the right moment, despite abundant information on ato.gov.au.
A second job rarely triggers a just-in-time message about which employer should hold the tax-free threshold (and the exact words to fix it).
Young workers seldom see bite-sized, capacity-aware suggestions like “try $10/week into super now,” tuned to their balance and cash-flow.
Realisation: the root cause is an information mismatch.
We built TaxBuddy to close the gap and go one step further
We realised the missing piece wasn’t more information but understanding taxpayer context and delivering interactive tools that teach while you act. In two minutes, TaxBuddy learns enough about you to surface only what’s relevant, exactly when you need it, so the right info reaches the right people in a clear, actionable way and educates taxpayers. It resolves issues early by flagging risks, explaining why they matter, and outlining the single next step before they become an issue.
In one line
We aggregated and analysed the data, found fixable issues, realised the root cause was an information mismatch, and built TaxBuddy to understand each person’s context and deliver interactive tools that educate while you act — so the right information reaches the right people at the right time.
