Hi UnhappyUser1234
Thanks for your question!
We've not seen PAYG or ETP entries duplicated by themselves before. If you've used the ATO's Prefill feature, and someone has added additional entries, this could cause a discrepancy. If no prefill was used, then it is very difficult to pinpoint a cause.
Our support team would have asked for exports of the returns - as this is the only way we can get all the detail that is in a return - using printouts of a return does not include all information that was prepared/included in a return.
Our staff have all signed non-disclosure agreements to protect client's sensitive information for this purpose.
Looking at the return prints that you have submitted, there is absolutely no way to assess what has occured or what has been entered etc - as not all the applicable data is available - I would suggest, as above, that you provide exports for this return so we can examine further.
There is also a chance that something occured during a "write" to the database - and this could lead to potential issues with (generally) one item being potentially messed up. Exporting the return allows us to examine the data at a very base level - field=value. It is highly unlikely that multiple fields would have been affected (as a database write occurs when you leave one field, to move into the next)
Sometimes, when an issue occurs, exporting a return will often allow you to remove then reimport the return (as it removes the record from the database and recreates from the "most basic elements - field=value".
If this has occured on a single return, then it's possible that something either occuring during the writing of the data, or a user has made modifications/prefilled etc.
What data did the ATO actually receive in the transmission for this taxpayer when you lodged the return prepared on 4th October, 2019? did they in fact receive duplicate data? do you have an incident number we can follow up with the ATO regarding this? What date was this 4th of October 2019 return lodged?
Secondly, the second return print you have provided appears to be for same tax payer (difficult to tell with so much redacted information), however, it was "Prepared" in January 2020. This would indicate that someone has potentially edited the original return (assuming the original return prepared in October 2019 was not lodged). The second return also indicates that it is an 'orginal' not an 'amendment' which further supports this hypothesis.
If you can provide our support team with an Audit Trail report for this return, it might also give some indication of what has occured.
