JCPAA biannual meeting with the Commissioner of Taxation
Friday 23 October 2009
Parliament House, Canberra
Commissioner’s opening statement
I am pleased to report to the Committee on our performance in the 2008-09 financial year. We have provided the Committee with a written report that highlights our end-of-year performance against our outcome statement, our 2008-09 Corporate plan, our commitments to government and independent survey findings. We also welcome the Committee’s advice on our focus for the coming year.
We delivered on the priorities of the past year against a backdrop of extraordinary events. The global economic downturn, the natural disasters in many parts of Australia, our tight budget position, the extra workloads and commitments we have taken on since the May Budget, constitutional challenges and the delivery of Tax Bonus payments: these were all commitments which we met by being adaptive and doing things differently as an organisation.
Some highlights of our performance include:
- Responding to the natural disasters by: suspending correspondence with affected people and businesses; fast-tracking refunds; assisting with the reconstruction of tax records; and supporting people in dire financial stress by deferring lodgement due dates, relaxing payment arrangements, providing remissions of penalties and interest, and the release or non-pursuit of tax debts
- Providing practical and tailored support to help small businesses, through visits, seminars, workshops and phone assistance, as well as early intervention in relation to debt. We also introduced 12 month interest-free payment arrangements and deferred activity statement payment due dates for small business as well as reducing the uplift factor on GST quarterly instalments from 9% to 2% for the 2010 fiscal year
- Delivering around 8.7 million Tax Bonus payments worth around $8 billion
- Progress with our Change Program, focussing on releases to meet election and Budget commitments, and
- Delivering on our commitments to the community in 22 of our 27 service standards.
The full assessment of our performance for 2008-09 will be included in our 2008-09 Annual Report which will be tabled in Parliament next week. You will see a dip in aggregate collections relative to last year, largely attributable to the economic downturn.
Significantly, our surveys show that we have generally maintained the confidence of businesses, tax agents and the community.
Organisationally we continued our message of thrift, using our tight financial position as a lever for innovation and productivity improvements. We made progress with our transformational change program, but the schedule for the remaining releases remains high risk.
On the people front, we focussed on leadership, and our new Agency Agreements provide for greater flexibility, skills development and talent management.
Looking forward, our Corporate Plan for 2009-10 provides a holistic view of our corporate priorities moving into 2010. Our draft Strategic statement 2010-15, which is included in our report, outlines our initial thinking about our longer-term strategic direction. I would appreciate the Committee’s views on the directions we are heading, one based on inclusiveness in working closely with the community in the care and management of the public’s tax and superannuation systems.
Thank you.
Last Modified: Friday, 23 October 2009
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