Aussies have woken up to a pre-Christmas gift of around $400 in their bank accounts after the government made changes to student loans.
On Thursday morning, the Australian Taxation Office issued the refunds, which averaged $400, following legislation that changed the indexation of student and education loans.
The ATO said last week that anyone with student loans indexed in the past two years would get the excess money back.
“Most people will see these credits in their accounts by the end of January,” it said in a statement.
“Some credits will take a little longer to appear in the accounts depending on the complexity.”
The legislation became law last month and changed the way HECS debt is indexed.
Before the law, they were indexed in accordance with the inflation rate, the consumer price index (CPI).
But now they are indexed to the CPI or the wage price index, whichever is lower.
The legislation became law last month and changed the way student debt is indexed
The change has been applied retroactively to the past two financial years.
The indexation percentages have decreased by 3.9 percent for the 2022-2023 financial year and by 0.7 percent for the 2023-2024 financial year.
It means that people with student debt will get credit – and that people who have paid off their debt since 2023 will get a refund.
The amount Aussies get back depends on the amount they owed when indexation was applied.
More to come…