Most businesses can organise to withold more tax for you. Talk to your payroll department, they might also have some idea of why you're consistently behind in your tax obligations.
If you really want a forced saving experience with tax remove your claim to the tax free threshold for that job. Do that and I can basically guarantee you'll be sitting on a fat return every year.
The downside is of course that getting that tax return means you didn't have that money for the rest of the year, which is good if you can't save otherwise but means you didn't even get the pittance of interest you could have gotten if you had it (not to mention making your life hard if the weekly budget was already tight).
This is what my partner and i do, we get about 7k back each year, as you say its like a forced savings account
I’m not sure I understand, it’s like a forced zero interest savings account? Wouldn’t it be better to have it the other way around and get a zero interest loan?
I think you should try to look on the bright side! As @tau mentioned, if the money remains in your accounts all year, it can be earning you interest in a HISA, or reducing your mortgage interest if you keep it in an offset account. It might not be much interest, but the idea of getting one up on the ATO makes it feel more fun, anyway!
Obviously being surprised with a tax bill isn't ideal, though, so you might want to set up a separate, untouchable HISA (assuming you don't have a mortgage offset account) and have a regular automated transfer (scheduled as close after payday as will be reliable). That way you effectively have 'forced savings', with the bonus that you get interest instead of the ATO. A lot of banks have crappy HISA rates, or require you to remember to meet some account activity requirement to get a 'bonus rate', so it's worth considering finding the best one that you can set and forget.
It might sound like more hassle than it's worth to set up an account with a new bank, but I found it pretty easy to do online when it was just a savings account (i.e. not credit), and for the purpose of 'forced savings' having the account with a different bank to your usual one helps keep the account out of sight and out of mind.
Finder has a sortable list of high interest savings accounts in Australia (link is sorted by base interest rate, not the maximum/bonus rate): https://www.finder.com.au/savings-accounts/high-interest-savings-accounts?sort=AUFSA.RECORD.VARIANT.DATAPOINT_STANDARD_VARIABLE_RATE_COMPV2_L+DESCENDING
Do you know why you end up owing? I've mostly ended up owing when I've gotten a significant pay bump, which it's hard to feel too bad about (rebates still feel good though).
Alternatively maybe the reductions in HECS have increased your taxable income?