Including Advanced Tax-Related Merge Fields in Email Templates

When creating an email template, you can include merge fields that are based on the on tax information from Xero Tax. These are added from the merge field group XERO TAX.

Note: The Tax Merge Fields can only be used in the FYI pre-configured processes for Tax Assessments as these processes are triggered by tax returns and assessments (refer to the section Xero Tax Automations). If these Tax Merge Fields are used in any other processes (such as Custom Processes) the source of these will not be known and the Merge Fields will not retrieve any data.

You can also add these as custom merge fields. The structure of the custom merge field is as follows:

 {{ Tax_'TaxType'_'Year'_'Field' }}

To add the merge field to an Email Template:

1. In the Email Template, expand the XERO TAX merge fields section.
2. Click the Show Advanced button.
3. Enter each part of the merge field by selecting the Tax Type and Field from the drop-downs and typing the value required for the Year.
4. Click Add and the merge field is added to the Email Template. See also below for examples.
   
   

The following are the values for 'TaxType', 'Year' and 'Field' which can be selected or typed to make up the complete custom merge field.

'TaxType'
The code that is shown for the Tax Type when the merge field is added is shown below in brackets.
Activity Statement (AS)
Company Return (CTR)
Income Tax (ITR)
Partnership Return (PTR)
Trust Return (TRT)
SMSF (SMSF)

'Year' is typed directed for example as 2020, 2019, 2018, etc.

'Field'
Estimated Income = amount of the estimated income tax
Est. Payable/Refundable = amount of the estimated refund that is payable or refundable
Income = amount of the income tax
Income variance = amount of the variance from the estimate of the income tax
Issue = date it was issued by the ATO
Lodgement = date it was logged to the ATO
Payable/Refundable = amount of the refund that is payable or refundable
Payable/Refundable variance = the amount of the variance from estimate of the amount payable or refundable
Period from = from date of the period
Period to = to date of the period
State = state of the tax submission, that is, Draft, Filed, Completed

Examples
The following are examples of how you can include these Merge Fields in an email template.

Your 2020 tax from {{ Tax_SMSF_2020_PeriodFrom }} to {{ Tax_SMSF_2020_PeriodTo }} is estimated to be {{ Tax_SMSF_2020_EstimatedPayableRefundable }}

Your 2020 income tax return from {{ Tax_ITR_2020_PeriodFrom }} to {{ Tax_ITR_2020_PeriodTo }} was lodged with the ATO on {{ Tax_ITR_2020_ Lodgement }}

Defaults for Year and Tax Type

When Tax Merge Fields are used in a template when manually creating an email, if the year or entity type parameters are not included in the Merge Field, they will default as following:

• Year - whatever is available for the most recent dataset of the relevant client
• Entity Type - defaults to ITR (which is the dataset currently being supported)

To add the Tax Merge fields so that defaults are applied, add them from the Advanced Tax section in the template and then change the fields in the body of the template by deleting parts of the field.

For example, instead of the full Merge Field of {{ Tax_ITR_2020_Income }}

• If you edit this to be {{ Tax_ITR_Income }} the year will default.
• If you edit this to be {{ Tax_Income }} the year will default and the type will default to ITR.

These defaults allow you to set up templates with tax merge fields that can be used when creating emails via an automation or creating emails manually. This avoids having to maintain multiple versions of the same template. It also allows users to manually create emails that include tax merge fields in the event that there is an issue in an automation that uses the same template.