Download a PDF version of this document (NAT 7769, PDF, 3.7 MB).
One of our values is being open and accountable to the Australian community. Publishing our compliance program each year is an important part of this. We feel strongly that the community should have the opportunity to understand (and tell us what they think about) our compliance activities and practices. To that end, one of the things we have done is to engage more purposefully with tax practitioners in preparing this year's compliance program.
Underpinning the compliance program every year is our assessment of the most significant risks to compliance with the tax and superannuation systems. These assessments, informed by our understanding of these systems in operation and by consultation with the community, form the basis of the choices we make in the allocation of resources to our compliance activities, and the types of activities we undertake.
This year we worked with two of our peak tax practitioner consultative groups to test the risks that we identified, and invited tax practitioners to contribute their views on other risk areas we should consider. These discussions are encouraging in that they broadly confirmed our areas of focus as those rightly requiring attention. We will therefore continue having them as we develop compliance programs in the years to come.
We also asked some individual tax practitioners to help us make the compliance program publication more reader-friendly and relevant to their needs. I hope that the improvements we have made in response to this feedback will be apparent as you read through and that it hits the mark.
Another innovative approach this year is the inclusion (together with the usual performance statistics) of an update of the work we did in 2011-12 to develop new ways of demonstrating the effectiveness of our activities through the use of participation indicators. A better understanding of whether we have influenced compliance behaviour in a positive and sustainable way is important to us and to community confidence.
A separate chapter has been included this year outlining the many initiatives we have to support those who want to do the right thing but need some help. As our compliance model makes clear, support and protection are twin pillars of high levels of proper participation in Australia's tax and superannuation systems.
Our vision for Australia's tax and superannuation systems is that they are valued as community assets, and that proper participation in these systems is recognised as good citizenship. We think that supporting people to understand their rights and responsibilities, and protecting the community by deterring, detecting and dealing with those who do not meet their obligations, are vital to achieving this vision. This compliance program highlights many of our activities and outcomes that help us and the community encourage good citizenship in relation to tax and superannuation.
Michael D'Ascenzo
Commissioner of Taxation
Last Modified: Thursday, 19 July 2012