By Mex Cooper
The tax office has failed for the 15th year in a row to provide Apple Mac users with the ability to file their tax returns online.
The number of Australians using the Australian Tax Office's 'e-tax' to lodge their returns online grew to more than 20 per cent of taxpayers last financial year.
But despite years of promises, the system will again this year only be able to be used on computers running Windows operating systems.
Macworld Australia editor-in-chief Dave Bullard said each year at tax time the magazine was contacted by a growing number of frustrated taxpayers unable to do their returns online.
"It's something that they all want the ability to do on a Mac but that the ATO just refuses to do," Mr Bullard said.
He said the number of Australian Mac users had grown "exponentially' during the past two years as iPhone and iPad customers became predisposed to buy Apple computers.
At the same time more and more people are choosing to lodge their returns online with refunds usually issued within 12 business days.
Since 1999 the number of returns lodged through e-tax has risen from 13,500 to 2.6 million last financial year.
Mr Bullard said the magazine had been told that there weren't enough Mac users to make it worthwhile for the ATO to provide a compatible system.
He said in the past Mac users had often been forced to run Windows applications but that Apple buyers now expected to be treated as equals.
"In the old days, even about five years ago, Mac users were discriminated against because they were in such a small minority but those days are gone," he said.
"The only legacy of that really is the ability to do your tax online.
"It will obviously cost them money to re-code it but being a government department you would think that they would almost be obliged to cater to every computer user, it isn't as if we're asking for [the computer operating system] Linux or anything like that, Mac OS is a major operating system."
Apple owners can use e-tax if they first spend hundreds of dollars for a Windows operating system as well as Parallels or VMware Fusion software that allows Windows to be run on a Mac computer.
The cost of the software, if used for tax returns, is tax deductible.
But Mr Bullard said most Mac users would opt to see a tax agent instead.
E-Tax was first released in 1997. The ATO reportedly said at the time that there would be a new web-based system up and running within two years.
Mr Bullard said each year the ATO promised to deliver a Mac-compatible version but failed to deliver.
In a statement, the ATO said a Mac version had been developed in 2011 but because of a "number of complexities related to IT security concerns and usability" its release had been delayed until 2013.
The tax office said it was also still pursuing the possibility of making e-tax a web-based system that was compatible with the majority of operating systems and mobile phones.
"The ATO recognises the importance of making e-tax available to as many people as possible," the statement said.
Apple would not comment on e-tax or provide the number of Australian Mac users.
The company would only reveal that there are 66 million Mac users worldwide, triple the number five years ago.