I received a letter from Centrelink in 2017 about an apparent discrepancy between my taxable income and reported income for the 14/15 financial year. They asked me to enter my payslip amounts for the entire year for three jobs into their system. Luckily I was able to find a record of all of these. After this time consuming process, I was able to figure out the reason for the 'discrepancy'. The system had missed one of my reporting periods that spanned from the end of the financial year into the new year. The discrepancy was exactly the same as the payslip amount for that period, which would have been reported to Centrelink in the next financial year. I sent this payslip to Centrelink to explain the issue but continued to be contacted by them. I explained the situation numerous times to a woman who basically didn't listen to me. At this time, I was experiencing a lot of stress in my personal life and at work and this kind of false accusation from a government agency was very upsetting. I also felt frustrated because Centrelink had clearly failed to consider the pretty basic concept that reporting periods and financial years don't perfectly align and hadn't trained their staff on this. I was also angry because other people in my situation may not have been able to figure it out and would have been forced to pay.
Terribly. I feel the government has failed to acknowledge their mistakes. I got no apology or confirmation from them when they finally accepted my explanation and stopped hassling me