Errors and over-claiming for work related expenses and the Tax Gap (Part 2)
- Published in Bookkeeping News
In case you missed it, Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan made a public address on the 5th of July 2017 in which he spoke about the ATO’s plans moving forward, especially concerning tax gaps. Let’s take a brief rundown of the situation as it stands:
- The ATO, for the first time is going to publish estimates for corporate tax and income tax gaps for different segments. They were previously publishing estimates for GST based gaps.
- Their first release of these numbers was for the corporate tax gap calculated based on 2014-15 data, which is approximately $2.5 billion (a tax gap is the difference between what the ATO has collected and what it should have collected, were everyone compliant with the existing laws.)
- This $2.5 billion tax gap shows that the ATO has collected about 94% of the corporate tax they should be receiving, 91% voluntarily declared and 3% through compliance intervention. While this is around global best practice, the ATO will continue to closely watch the 1400 businesses in that segment.
- Their current aim for corporate tax is to work with taxpayers to encourage voluntary compliance and move away from the necessity for increased intervention.
- The ATO is now dedicating more resources to other markets they believe, from their initial findings to have higher tax gaps. Namely; small businesses, the black economy (the cash economy) and the individuals market.