Consideration of the ATO's Tax risk management and governance review guide
The ATO published an updated Tax risk management and governance review guide on 27 January 2017.
The guide sets out principles for board-level and managerial-level controls relating to income tax and what the ATO considers better practice for large public groups and multinationals.
Describe your approach to the ATO’s guide including whether you have:
- conducted a gap analysis of current policies and procedures against the ATO’s guide and identified compensating controls where applicable
- applied the self-assessment procedures to test and obtain evidence of the controls operating effectively.
If the self-assessment procedures have been applied, provide details of any control deficiencies and identified impact on the tax return, including actions taken to remediate the identified deficiencies.
Tax control framework
Provide the most recent documentation evidencing your tax control management including relevant policies, procedures, manuals, and other guidance made available to staff that include:
- key personnel and decision makers in the tax/finance team including their areas of responsibility and specialisation across tax advisory and tax compliance matters
- how tax compliance is incorporated into the business's governance structure, including the process for reporting to the board on tax matters
- an overview of the process for preparing the tax return including details of any tax return software used and any outsourcing arrangements
- an overview of the process for tax effect accounting including outsourcing arrangements, how often the process is undertaken, who is responsible and how the calculations are used within the tax return preparation process
- your approach to addressing tax risks in respect of significant transactions and the use of external advisors including the circumstances when external advice on a taxation issue is sought.
Internal and external reviews
Confirm whether you have a periodic program to test the operating effectiveness of your control framework by way of internal or external reviews. If so, provide details of the scope and outcome of the most recent review.