The ATO assures businesses that if they are selected to participate in the survey, any information they provide will be anonymous, confidential and protected by privacy laws and a strict code of ethics.
SMEs that do not wish to participate should advise the research company representative when they call. SMEs can also ask them to call back at a more convenient time.
ATO targets “high risk” industries regarding super non-compliance
The ATO is working with selected sub-industries it considers are at a high risk of superannuation guarantee non-compliance. The industries are:
As part of this exercise, the ATO is:
The ATO says it has found that employers in these sub-industries are making some common mistakes, including:
Employers must make the relevant super contributions by 28 January 2010 for the quarter ending 30 December 2009 to a complying super fund or retirement savings account.
Employers that make a payment after the cut-off date must:
They may have to pay penalties if they don’t comply. Employers cannot claim the super guarantee charge as a tax deduction, however, if they pay their contributions on time, the
contributions themselves are tax deductible.
Non-resident withholding tax
In general terms, businesses have to withhold tax from payments they make to non-residents, so-called non-resident withholding tax. The tax then has to be sent to the ATO.
However, the ATO says it is seeing errors in some companies’ reporting, including amounts being placed at wrong labels in the BAS or tax return. It says it has identified that payers have trouble locating data in their systems or verifying that amounts had been paid, or there was a mismatch of information between replies to ATO queries and that provided in their annual reports.
For example, one company told the ATO it overlooked a transaction which resulted in a $1.1 million withholding being made one year late. In another case, the taxpayer said it wrongly dealt with the amount in its accounting systems, resulting in almost $10 million withholding being three years late.
The ATO is concerned that some smaller entities may not understand their obligations in this area. ATO compliance work on unlodged annual reports has identified that over 50% of taxpayers who reported amounts at the related income tax expense label or BAS label were in fact not related to such activity.
Terry Hayes is the senior tax writer at Thomson Reuters, a leading Australian provider of tax, accounting and legal information solutions.
For more Terry Hayes features, click here .
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
