If you’re part of our Next 5,000 private groups tax performance program, we expect you to keep up-to-date and accurate records for your tax returns and business activity statements. If you don’t, you could face lengthy and costly audits potentially denying your deductions and input tax credits.
Our regular and ongoing engagement with groups like yours reveals that basic record keeping, including the substantiation of income and expenses is not always well maintained.
For example, the 2024 Next 5,000 findings report for privately owned and wealthy groups shows that, in some cases, deductions were denied because of poor record keeping. Claimants couldn’t substantiate their expenses, or they couldn’t provide acceptable evidence of the linkage between expenses and income.
This was especially true for related party transactions for example, where one party’s reported income was less than the deduction claimed by their associated party.
To steer clear of these pitfalls, use our comprehensive Record keeping for business resource, which can help you with everything you need to know, including:
- an index of core record-keeping information for groups like yours, so you can easily find what you need
- an overview of the record-keeping rules you must follow
- how to set up and manage records and invoices
- the records you must keep, whatever stage of the business lifecycle you’re in.
We know that most Next 5,000 taxpayers want to get tax right and meet obligations effectively. That's why we’ll continue to provide you with the information you need.
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