A TFN or tax file number is typically required if you want to work or have an income in Australia. The number does not change after being issued, so it is a permanent identification measure as well as an essential factor in the administration of Australian tax law. The permanence of the tax file number means that you need not worry about it changing just because some of your personal detailssuch as your name or your address, for instancehappen to change. All alterations to these fields have no bearing on the actual number itself. It can be troublesome to recover a lost tax file number, but owing to the fact that it does not change and stays the same throughout the rest of your life, recovery is certainly not impossible.
The first course of action is open only to those who are already employed. There are in fact cases where those who are already making an income lose their tax file numbers, and the solution is quite simple for these persons. Generally, Australian employers place the tax file number on their employees payment slips, so you can just refer to these documents for your number.
Another possibility is to go looking for your tax documents. If you have any old tax returns or similar government tax statements in your drawers, you may refer to these to discover your missing number. Tax documents and correspondence from the Australian Taxation Office typically include the number on their papers, so this is a fairly certain path.
Of course, there may be cases where you do not have any of these documents at your disposal, or the documents, for some strange reason, do not have the tax file number. When this happens, you need to go to the Australian Taxation Office itself.
You can get in touch with your tax agent to verify that you do have a TFN and ask for it. If this is not possible, however, you may want to contact the Australian Taxation Office at 13 28 61. Take care to call this number only between the hours of 8.00 in the morning and 6.00 in the evening, and do it on a weekday. Be warned too that getting someone on the other end of the line may take a while.
You should have your documents and data ready, because the representative on the phone shall ask for details to know that you are who you claim to be. Depending on your circumstances, they may ask you to file an enquiry form (this is on their website) to retrieve your number, but this is rare. Most often, you can get your tax number by just calling them and supplying the information they need.
Author recommends to check out more reviews on 2010 tax and 2009 tax.