I was on Youth Allowance when I first moved to the city to attend university. First in my family to do so etc. I applied for Youth Allowance and started receiving while I looked for a job in a new state (and living away from a small country town for the first time). I secured employment, but initially it was casual with unpredictable hours. I later went off Centrelink when I had a reliable enough job to pay my own way through uni (I received payments over two financial years).
When it had been over five and a half years since I had been on Centrelink, I destroyed all my financial paperwork from this time. I figured if the ATO wanted me to keep paperwork for two years for simple returns, then I would keep my Centrelink related paperwork for five years, as it probably constituted a more complicated return.
Now the government is chasing people who were on Centrelink from six years ago (and have the capacity to go further back). As I received part payments, and I worked fulltime for periods in the same financial years as I received Youth Allowance, it seems likely I have a "debt" too.
I don't have a mygov account. As it was so long since I have received Centrelink, I do not have anything with my CRN on it, I don't know it, so I cannot ring to find out if I have a debt. I have moved since university (back to the bush, using my degree to help my community). I decided to pop into the local Centrelink office to ask them (over 100kms away) when I was in town, making sure to have 100 points of ID. They said they couldn't help, I had to ring or go online, and shooed me out the door. I still don't have my CRN.
I am scared.
I am scared I have a debt.
I am scared it will be discovered when my husband and I try and buy a house (hopefully in a few months).
Or when I go overseas to my friend's wedding.
Or perhaps when doing my tax.
I had a plan, approaching Centrelink to see if I was one of the tens of thousands incorrectly accused. I can fight an accusation (although, probably not well as I have no documentation from the time period).
Instead I have an Unknown.
I don't know when this axe (which may or may not even exist) will fall.
I haven't slept unless I have been exhausted in a few weeks. If I am not exhausted I wake up in a cold sweat.
I have no mental health history, no history of being a very anxious person, but this is like fighting shadows. I am so scared that everything I took the risk to do, to go away to university despite the barriers to do so, will come and wreck havoc on what my husband and I are building together.
Comparing yearly data to fortnightly data is daft to begin with, but to have no human oversight to the initial demand letter is a bigger problem.
People should be contacted at their last known ATO address if they have moved (I have moved since then also, but it at least has a bigger chance of finding me this way).
It needs to be recognized it is unrealistic to need payslips and/or timesheets and/or bank statements from so many years ago. ATO says I need to keep my financial paperwork for five years for a complicated return, so at the very least the debt demands should be in line with this.
I looked, most of my employers from this time are no longer in business. The one that is has indicated I will need to pay to get them to search through their records from so far back (and they won't be able to provide me with timesheets). My bank has similarly stated there will be a fee for retrieving bank statements.
Perhaps most troubling is the disregard for due process.