We are improving our compliance approaches for GST and excise to increase our focus on early intervention and prevention. Instead of relying solely on reviews and audits as the basis of our interaction, we are also using assurance based products that promote self-review and collaborative resolution of GST or excise issues.
We may use workshops for large businesses categorised in our RDF as key taxpayers or lower risk taxpayers.
Assurance workshops are an opportunity for you and your client relationship manager (CRM) to work together to identify and resolve potential GST or excise issues in an open and transparent manner. We encourage you to discuss the suitability of a workshop with your CRM.
We will co-design the workshop agenda with you. Depending on the workshop agenda, specialists from other tax areas may be invited.
There are two types of assurance workshops available:
Governance workshops
These workshops are intended to help you identify and address weaknesses in your governance and tax risk management processes and may also enable us to improve and tailor our interactions with your business.
Risk workshops
These tailored workshops will enable us to work with you to understand and resolve specific GST or excise issues. They allow us to jointly address issues in real time, especially if complex or unusual transactions are about to take place (such as mergers or acquisitions) or if transactions that commonly result in errors have already taken place.
Figure 9 Risk analysis and case selection
Risk review and audit processes (detailed in appendix 6 and appendix 7) show our generic processes for carrying out more detailed risk reviews and audits of large businesses. Although figure 9 reflects the usual progress of these processes, we may not necessarily follow every step depending on the circumstances. For example, you may make a voluntary disclosure during a risk review that resolves the issue.
We review all large business at a high level using our risk filtering processes. In addition, if appropriate, we will use a real-time compliance approach that provides for the identification and assessment of risk.
We will escalate some cases to audit to confirm whether non-compliance has occurred. The majority of audits lead to an adjustment.
In conducting a risk review (or audit) we focus on:
- planning to agree on timeframes and the scope of active compliance activities
- open dialogue with you, including initial discussions with you on any matter that has attracted our attention and sharing of the risk hypothesis
- gaining an understanding of your business context and environment by using the BISEP model (see appendix 1)
- gathering relevant information and evidence to get the full facts quickly
- making the right tax decisions according to the law.
Risk reviews tend to have a wide context to establish if there are any material concerns for us. Their aim is to assess risks and their severity. However they are not an in-depth examination as this is the domain of an audit. The audit involves a deeper verification of the facts and a determination of our view about those facts.
In some instances, the nature of transactions and our knowledge of the compliance risks mean that the case proceeds directly to audit from the risk analysis process. These may include circumstances where we consider your business or particular arrangement is higher risk, the case involves carrying forward a previous audit, is time sensitive or we perceive a collection risk.
Sections within Active compliance approaches
Last Modified: Wednesday, 27 February 2013