We're working to better tailor our engagement with the Top 100 and Top 1,000 public and multinational business taxpayers for GST. To facilitate this, we're introducing an annual GST return for those large businesses who have received a GST assurance review.
The information provided in the annual return will enable more targeted and less resource intensive justified trust reviews for many taxpayers. The return is straightforward to complete and targeted at understanding how taxpayers have actioned recommendations from our earlier review, and key updates on governance and GST compliance for the year. Taxpayers that have achieved high levels of assurance are expected to be the key beneficiaries as they've already adopted best practice governance and systems practices.
'Large public and multinational businesses collect around 60% of all GST, so it is important that we have confidence they are collecting and remitting the right amount,' Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Saint advised.
'Most are meeting their GST obligations. Our justified trust program has driven improvements in governance and systems controls. This will deliver lasting confidence about the GST compliance of most large businesses. Building on this, the new annual return will enable us to better monitor taxpayers, reducing the need for intensive justified trust reviews in many circumstances.'
We've undertaken significant consultation in developing our approach and will continue to engage with stakeholders as we move towards implementing the new return. We'll initially trial the new return through a pilot, where we'll work with a small number of Top 100 and Top 1,000 taxpayers to respond to the return questions as part of their assurance reviews. This will focus on the clarity and functionality of the questions to ensure they work as intended. We expect to commence the pilot in the next 6 months. If you're part of this group, we'll reach out to you soon.
Remaining taxpayers will need to start lodging the return from the 2024–25 financial year. The due date for lodgment depends on your financial year, with the first lodgments for early balancers due on 21 August 2025.
We'll be updating our web guidance soon with a copy of the return and with further detail on who is required to lodge. We'll include when the return is due, how we'll use the information you provide, and instructions for how to complete the return. We'll also directly notify those who need to lodge.
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