Each year I see the same confusion with Etax and etax.com.au
E-tax is the name that the Australian Tax Office gave to its electronic tax return system in 1999, according to some sources.
etax.com.au is the website for a firm of Accountants who created an online tax preparation system in 1998. They hold Australian trademark 798267 for “E ETAX YOUR OWN CPA”. And registered Etax Cpa Pty Ltd in August 1998.
A quote from the etax.com.au website:
At Etax Accountants, we registered the domain name www.etax.com.au in August 1998 and we’ve provided quality online tax return service to people across Australia since 1999.
Later, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) released their software named ATO E-tax. “E-tax” and “Etax” are words used around the world for online taxation and nobody owns the rights to these words.
However… The ATO E-tax appears to have been first initiated in 1997.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) initiated the e-tax program in January 1997. It is one of the first
applications in the world to be offered by a revenue service and one of the first of its type to use Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI) technology and Internet transmission. source: un.org
Extract from ASIC
Name ETAX ACCOUNTANTS PTY LTD
ACN 083 958 150
ABN 54 083 958 150
Type Australian Proprietary Company, Limited By Shares
Registration Date 18/08/1998
Next Review Date 18/08/2013
Status Registered
Locality of Registered Office Upper Mount Gravatt QLD 4122
Jurisdiction Australian Securities & Investments Commission
230.1 - 873,668