Paying the ATO with a points earning Visa, Mastercard or American Express card usually isn’t worth it due to the surcharges involved. Even the fees on third-party payment processors can be high enough to negate the value of the points you receive.
However, thanks to a current promotion on Coles Mastercard digital gift cards, you can now pay the ATO for zero fees or surcharges using a points earning credit card.
The way it works is that you use your points earning card to buy the Coles Mastercard gift cards and then you use the gift cards to pay the ATO over the phone (they don’t work on the ATO or Government EasyPay websites).
The ATO treat these Coles Mastercard gift cards as domestic debit cards which, unlike credit cards, no longer incur a surcharge as of 1 Jan 2025.
To perform a phone payment with the ATO, you’ll first need to locate your payment reference number. This can be found by logging into the ATO website and navigating to Tax > Accounts > Summary.
You can manually enter your details each time you call or, alternatively, modify a dial string like this to automate the process:
1300898089,,0,,,PRN#,,,,,,,AMOUNT#,,,CARDNUMBER#,,CVV#,,,EXPIRY#,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,1- PRN: Your payment reference number
- AMOUNT: The amount you want to pay to two decimal places but without a decimal point (e.g. to pay $250.00 you would enter 25000)
- CARDNUMBER: The sixteen digit gift card number beginning with 51
- CVV: The three digit security code
- EXPIRY: The gift card expiry date in MMYY format (e.g. 1030)
For your convenience the ATO Government EasyPay phone number has already been included at the start but it’s good practice to independently verify this number yourself instead of blindly trusting what you read online.
To use the string, copy and paste it into your notes, change the placeholders to your own details, paste the completed string into your phone app and then dial it. Your phone will automatically input the numbers you’ve provided at each step of the call.
Whilst this dial string still works at the time of writing, it may stop functioning properly if the ATO make further changes to their phone menu options. Listen carefully as your PRN is read back to you and record the receipt number in case of any issues.
It’s also important to remember that whilst these gift cards currently support ATO payments, it’s not inconceivable that either the ATO or the gift card company could suddenly put an end to it.
These gift cards may also work for other bills and taxes that can be paid online but there are no guarantees. If you’re unsure, only buy a small number of gift cards at a time before going back for more.
One last thing to keep in mind is that these digital Mastercard gift cards can only be spent online as they don’t support mobile wallets (e.g. Apple Pay). This makes them very annoying to use outside of paying bills.
Terms and conditions
Terms and Conditions apply. No purchase Fee on $100 and $250 digital Coles Mastercard’s. Excludes $50 Coles Mastercard. Offer available from 9/9/2026 9am AEST. Offer ends 15/9/2026 5pm. Offer only available from giftcards.com.au. Maximum order value $2,500. One order per customer per day. Can only be used for Online purchases only. Cards may take up to 24 hours to activate. Purchase fee will be deducted from total invoice cost. The Coles Mastercard® Digital Account is issued by Heritage and People’s Choice Limited trading as Heritage Bank ABN 11 087 651 125, AFSL/ACL No. 244310 pursuant to licence by Mastercard International Incorporated. Card usage is subject to the Terms and Conditions available at www.mybalancenow.com/#/cardholderAgreement. Card is not redeemable for cash. Card cannot be replaced if lost or stolen and funds remaining on card at expiry will not be refunded. No order refunds provided. Refer to the ordering gift card T&C’s. Refer to individual gift cards for T&C’s We reserve the right to cancel any or all promotions at any time if we suspect error, fraud or any other abuse of the promotion is occurring.
39 Responses
This is also a great promo if you’ve got online bills etc where Amex isn’t accepted. My husband just got the amex card and we need to hit minimum spend and this way I can put all our bills on these cards.
ah good point Britt. Do you find that you can do split payments to pay bills (as the amount probably won’t be the exact same as the bill?
I’ve paid my bills with them before when they’ve been included for 10x points and had no issues with split payments
Any idea what the MCC is at GiftCards.com.au?
Last time I checked it was 5399: Miscellaneous General Merchandise Stores.
I found the automatation is really useful. many thanks
So these cards will not attract the fee that everyone (for a short time) still whacks on for a credit card payment? Is that for everywhere? Paying rates, shopping at Aldi etc?
No. The reason these are recommended for tax payments is because the ATO have surcharges for credit cards but not debit cards (which is how these gift cards are treated). Businesses that surcharge all Visa/Mastercard payments will still apply them to these gift cards. You also can’t even use them in-store since they’re digital gift cards that don’t support mobile wallet payments.
I wonder if I could pay for my council rates with these gift cards. Such a shame that this offer came out before 4 Sep 2026. 🙁
Yes you can. Paid mine using these today.
What’s the risk that purchasing these gift cards will be treated as a cash advance ?
Low. Even during the extremely popular 10% off Coles gift cards promotion that GiftCards.com.au ran last month I don’t recall seeing a single report of it being treated as a cash advance.
There are some online gift card stores that certain credit cards treat as a cash advance but most banks aren’t that evil (it’s usually just CommBank/Bankwest).
Does anyone know if they work for Afterpay or Klarna?
They’re extremely unlikely to work for those sorts of purchases.
So is it a maximum of $2500 @ one order per day? Or is it seperate in that you can do many orders over the period, but at 1 each day with the total of all orders being $2500? I have. A tax bill of $5,000 so am trying to work out if I can buy just 2 cards @ $2500 each over 2 days, or if I can only buy a total of $2500 in gift cards & pay the rest of my bill via my money.
It’s a limit one transaction per day and in that transaction you can buy up to $2,500 in gift cards. The next day you can buy another $2,500 in gift cards and so on.
How do they monitor that? Is it email/address or linked the card used to purchase it?
Various measures. Some people have reported being able to exceed the limit but if you’re using the same internet connection, address, payment method, email etc then it’s pretty easy for them to tell.
Hi anyone knows if we can use these cards for council rates?
Yes I use them at Moreton bay
Ive used for Sunshine Coast Council
I’ve tried for Waverley council online and by phone they still charge the 0.8%
Has anyone been able to use these for red energy? I’ve used them for rates and water bills
The number chain is awesome, its been working for me. Does anyone know how long it takes to show up in your ATO account? Thanks
Up to four business days.
Excuse my ignorance but can you go into Coles and purchase these cards with zero fee?
It’s an online only promotion, unfortunately. Even though Coles own GiftCards.com.au, their promotions are always separate.
Is there a maximum no. of phone payments ATO will take per day? I tried $250*10 but for the last one I accidentally paid $50 instead of $250. When I tried paying the remaining $200 on the giftcard to ATO again, the transaction was declined.
I believe the limit is ten payments per day.
Hi, does this still work on DEFT payments? I just tried making a DEFT payment today but it did not work.
Hi, do you know if you can buy foreign cash online with these? Wondering if I can stack with the Travelex offer through Woolies. Thanks
I’m not sure if it’s because I made too many ATO payments, but my card was rejected. Does anyone know how to resolve this?
I have been able to make 10x payments per day for the last 3 days. Did you do more than that?
Yes, 19 payments, then got declined 😞
It looks like it will be usable again in two days 🙂
If I purchase a gift card, will that transaction qualify for Amex Membership Rewards points, and could it ever be treated as a cash advance or cash-equivalent transaction?
Thanks for this, the automation still works as of 09/14/2026
Declined – Security Policy – ATO Payment
I just used one to make an ATO payment 30 seconds ago. If yours was declined it may be because there’s an issue with your particular gift card in which case you should call the number on the back of the card.