Exchange Rates Maintenance

Tax provides Foreign Exchange (forex) rates covering the relevant income year or substituted accounting period for both the Average annual rate and the Year-end rate.

These are the rates used by Tax for currency conversion the fields for which are provided in two worksheets in Tax:

The foreign income worksheet (for) which covers Other general foreign income and which is available to all the main form types (I, P, T C, F and MS); and
The Overseas pensions, annuities and Salary income not subject to Australian PAYG withholding (ove) which is only provided for the Individual return at the Foreign income item.

It is important to note that at the time the Tax software is released in June of each income year, the annual and average forex rates for the year ending 30 June have not been published and consequently there are no rates available for you to select in the above-mentioned worksheets.

The ATO usually publishes these Rates towards the end of July of the subsequent income year. MYOB will include the new rates in the software in the first Service Pack issued after the major release. Therefore, until such time as they are published and you have received and installed the Service Pack, you will need to visit the ATO website to find the relevant rate. You will then need to key that rate into whichever of the above worksheets you may be using for the taxpayer.

When you have installed the first Service Pack, you will also be able to Preview or Print these rates.

MYOB does not advise that you edit existing rates unless the software has made a mistake when the rates were created.

To access Exchange rates

(AE, Series 6 & 8) From Tax click Maintenance > Tax Rates > Exchange rates, or from Tax Calculator, click Maintenance > Exchange rates
Highlight an entry and click Properties to change the rate details.
Click Print to open the Preview/Print screen, set your print requirements and click OK.

What details are recorded for each country’s rate?

All foreign income, deductions and foreign tax paid must be translated (converted) to Australian dollars before including it in the tax return. From 1 July 2003, there are specific rules that tell you which exchange rate to use to convert these amounts. Generally, these require amounts to be converted at the exchange rate prevailing at the time of a transaction, or at an average rate.

If you require a foreign exchange rate for a currency not listed in the schedule, you may use any reasonable externally sourced exchange rate for that currency.

Year: The year refers to the calendar year.
End Date: There are two radio buttons: 30/06/CCYY refers to the financial year; 31/12/CCYY refers to the calendar year. The default is the financial or income year.
Code: [F10] to select from a list of Country Codes for which forex rates are published on the ATO website.
Average: The average rate is expressed to 4 decimal places.
Year-end: The year-end rate is expressed to 4 decimal places and refers to the either the financial year end or the calendar year end selected.