The Assistant Treasurer and Minister Assisting for Deregulation, David Bradbury, has today released the Inspector-General of Taxation's Review into the Australian Taxation Office's compliance approaches to small and medium enterprises with annual turnovers between $100 million and $250 million and high wealth individuals.
The Inspector-General conducted this review in response to concerns raised by taxpayers, tax practitioners and their representative bodies following the Australian Taxation Office's (ATO) increased compliance focus on small and medium enterprises and high wealth individuals.
The Inspector-General in the Report has identified key opportunities for the ATO to improve in a number of areas including its technical capability and support, initial compliance decision making, project management, audit conduct, communication and engagement and information gathering.
The Inspector-General has made 41 recommendations, some of which reinforce work that the ATO has already begun, whilst others are more distinct but complementary to that work. The ATO has agreed in full with 38 of the recommendations, two in part and disagreed with one.
The implementation of the recommendations together with the program of work already commenced by the ATO should result in significant improvements in this area of tax administration.
"I commend both the Inspector-General and the ATO for their work to improve the compliance approaches to small and medium enterprises and high wealth individuals," said Mr Bradbury.
The Inspector-General's report, including the ATO's response, is available at www.igt.gov.au.