Refunds
(Links to strategic priority 3 – Improve tax performance for clients of tax practitioners)
To ensure a refund is issued via electronic funds transfer, financial institution account (FIA) details need to be entered into every income tax lodgment, every time.
Omitting FIA details from the lodgment form will end-date any existing FIA details stored on Australian Taxation Office (ATO) records and result in a cheque being issued to the address listed on the lodgment account.
For accuracy, bank details should be confirmed with the client for every lodgment or refund request, to prevent delays where refunds are returned to the ATO or paid to an unknown third-party account.
If agents receive ATO correspondence to update bank details for their client, they must actively verify their client’s details to ensure FIA details are correct and up to date.
New legislation allowing the Commissioner of Taxation to stop refunds from issuing via cheque for up to 90 days to enable bank details to be provided was passed by Parliament in November 2024 and will come into effect on 1 January 2025.
Member comments
Not all bank accounts are accepted by the ATO. The ATO advised that to enable such FIA details for all back accounts, system changes would be needed.
For clients who don't have bank accounts, like expats, will often result in a cheque being issued. With the government announcement to cease cheques, this will need to be resolved.
Statement of account reduction
(Links to strategic priority 5 – Recognise, empower and support current and future tax practitioners)
In April and May 2024, the ATO consulted with tax and BAS agents to gain their views on the frequency, usefulness, and preferred delivery channel of the statement of account.
Feedback confirmed preferences for:
- a reduction in the frequency of statements of account
- electronic delivery channels.
The ATO has now identified informational statement of accounts suitable for frequency reduction. Members were presented with an overview of the proposed changes and feedback was sought.
Member comments
Members agreed with the reduction in the issuing of statement of accounts and the move to electronic delivery channels.
Partnership return ؘ– statement of distribution solution
(Links to strategic priority 1 – Protect the high levels of engagement and integrity in the tax, super and registry systems)
From 1 July 2025, the ATO will be lifting a system limitation so that statement of distributions for large partnerships can all be lodged via the electronic practitioner lodgment service – Standard Business Reporting channels.
The ATO are enabling system changes to facilitate this change, while also working to change agent behaviour to ensure that tax professionals complete the statement of distributions accurately and in system.
The ATO wants to explore opportunities to improve the user experience in completing the statement of distributions and is seeking feedback on how best to deliver messaging to encourage a change in behaviour.
The ATO indicated that firmer action will be taken for those not accurately completing the return.
Member comments
Members noted the increase in time it takes to enter the data in the current format and noted the limitations of some software, suggesting that allowing developers to include an excel spread with the data would improve the experience.
The ATO sought feedback from members about appropriate communication messaging to drive change in the reporting behaviour. Members suggested:
- Law change would achieve the desired outcome.
- Association newsletters could alert members about the risk of audit and scrutiny if the correct information is not disclosed. ATO messaging should reinforce that firms providing this information demonstrates that they are meeting integrity and transparency obligations.
Members suggested that failing to provide the required information could be considered fraud or a misleading statement and could potentially be a breach of tax practitioners board code.
Sharing Economy Reporting Regime
(Links to strategic priority 6 – Improve Small Business performance and level the playing field)
We have been sharing, Sharing Economy Reporting Regime (SERR) messaging through known ATO forums and other networks, to support online platforms, or Electronic Distribution Platforms (EDP) in helping sellers to understand their tax obligations and what and when information will be reported to the ATO, via the SERR report. For more information, see Sharing Economy Reporting Regime.
The ATO is continuing to engage with EDPs and other key stakeholders to build a deeper understanding on the business models of affected EDPs. This is helping us identify issues early, and ensure the necessary information and support is in place to assist EDPs in collecting and reporting SERR data.
A Legislative Instrument (LI) was published earlier in the year which sets out reporting exemptions that provide greater certainty for EDPs affected under the second phase of implementation, which started on 1 July 2024. An additional item has been added in draft and published LI 2024/D9 and is available for consultation until 17 January 2025.
Member comments
Members suggested that agents don’t always know the right questions to ask and suggested that nudge messaging may be beneficial.
Implementation of a global and domestic minimum tax
(Links to strategic priority 2 – Safeguard the security of the tax, super and registry systems)
The ATO is progressing implementation of the global and domestic minimum tax measure announced in the 2023 Commonwealth Budget.
Australian primary legislation has passed, and royal assent was received on 10 December 2024 (Act 132, Act 133, Consequential Act). The law design process for the subordinate legislation is currently ongoing and was registered as a legislative instrumentExternal Link on 23 December 2024 following enactment of the primary legislation.
Design of Australia’s new domestic returns and the IT systems needed to enable lodgment and exchange of data is underway.
The ATO has started further consultations via the Pillar Two Global and Domestic Minimum Tax Working Group established on 30 August 2024 to discuss feedback on administrative aspects of implementation of the measure.
The ATO’s compliance approach is developing with a focus on supporting taxpayers via education and targeted communications to get the basics right in the lead up to the first lodgment period.
Taxpayer readiness is a key consideration, and the ATO are encouraging taxpayers to be ready for implementation of the measure.
The ATO is currently designing the user interface and will continue to engage with this group as this work progresses.
Member comments
Members suggested that if the ATO is wanting digital service providers to include these forms in their software, they need to be included in the discussions.
Members asked for ongoing engagement as work progresses to which the ATO agreed.
Payday super
(Links to strategic priority 4 – Increase trust and confidence in the tax, super and registry systems)
The government has published Payday superannuation design details to ensure super is paid on timeExternal Link. From 1 July 2026:
- Superannuation guarantee (SG) contributions will be aligned with the payment of salary and wages.
- Businesses will become liable for the updated SG charge if super guarantee contributions are not received by their employees’ superannuation fund within seven days of payday.
- The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) will be retired as it is no longer fit-for-purpose in a payday regime.
The ATO will update infrastructure and data matching to better detect unpaid super payments earlier and allow for a proactive approach to compliance, to reduce the incidence of unpaid super. This will include updating Single Touch Payroll reporting requirements to make the reporting of both ordinary times earnings and total superannuation liability mandatory.
The ATO confirmed they will also work with industry to update the SuperStream standard, including allowing the acceptance of payments made via the New Payments Platform.
The SBSCH will close from 1 July 2026 and users will need to transition to new clearing house services for any contributions made on or after 1 July 2026.
A Payday super special purpose working group has been established to provide advice on the end-to-end administrative solution for Payday super with key messages from the working group published at Payday Super Working Group.
The Payday super measure is not yet law and the government are preparing draft legislation which will be released for public consultation.
Member comments
Members raised concerns with the admin uplift, that it is likely to raise more issues for agents to object to and concerns for employers who will need to prioritise their payments. The ATO reminded members that the admin uplift is a tax, not a penalty.
Members suggested that Payday super could reduce individuals super balance if funds increase admin costs due to increased transactions being received. The ATO noted that this is an issue that would need to be dealt with by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
Client-to-agent linking
(Links to strategic priority 2 – Safeguard the security of the tax, super and registry systems)
The ATO presented the findings of the post implementation review of client-to-agent linking (CAL) for Australian business number entities (excluding sole-traders) on 13 November 2023. The new process has been protecting 4.7 million entities for 12 months and has achieved its intended outcome with a range of learnings that will inform the next phase of delivery.
The ATO provided an update on feedback, outcomes, and actions taken since deployment, gathered from a range of sources and stakeholders. The ATO confirmed that the Client-to-agent linking steps information has recently been restructured to make information easier for agents to find.
The next steps for client-to-agent linking for individuals were discussed and members were advised that consultation will commence the design early in 2025.
Member comments
Members asked if the ATO has visibility of the average call length so that they can manage agent expectations of the time they need to set aside. The ATO advised that this data is not available because not all myID or Relationship Authorisation Manager calls are related to CAL. Many of the delays are caused when the caller does not have the information they need at hand. It was agreed that there is a shared education piece for the ATO and associations to help agents and taxpayers understand what information to have ready before they call the ATO.
Members suggested that there are many tax agents who are not aware of CAL until they have to use it. The ATO noted that an education campaign will be ongoing every year and both scripting and website information will be updated to reflect emerging needs.
Members also highlighted the need for taxpayers to update their details before changing agents to which the ATO confirmed there will be ongoing communication messaging around this.
Digital service provider tax time event 2025
(Links to strategic priority 1 – Protect the high levels of engagement and integrity in the tax, super and registry systems)
The ATO provided an overview of the annual digital service provider (DSP) tax time event lead by the ATO’s Digital Partnership Office, where subject matter experts and technical specialists discuss various service updates that software providers need to be aware of for the upcoming tax time release.
Member comments
It was noted that this is the beginning of a dialog between DSP Strategic Working Group and this group, and members would like to see a 12 to 24-month roadmap of what will change in the digital space that will impact tax practitioners.
Environmental scan
(Links to strategic priority 4 – Increase trust and confidence in the tax, super and registry systems)
Members led the environmental scan group discussion, covering a range of issues including:
- known issues with trust tax returns (to which the ATO confirmed a fix is to be implement early 2025)
- the confusion between Digital ID and myID
- messaging around the delivery of MTAS (to which the ATO agreed to provide an update at a future meeting.
Other Business
The ATO noted the following tabled papers:
- Access Manager
- Compromised Client Pilot Report
- Better Targeted Super
- 2025 group meeting schedule
- Group review of 2024.