Compliance program 2011-12

Micro enterprises

Income tax

We completed over 2,100 reviews and audits, raising approximately $111 million in liabilities. These activities included:

400 reviews and audits of partnership and trust distributions, raising approximately $17 million
almost 500 capital gains tax reviews and audits, raising approximately $46 million
130 reviews and audits of offshore income, raising approximately $14 million
around 690 reviews and audits to identify omitted income, raising approximately $21 million.

Lodgment

We wrote to 2.59 million micro enterprises following up their lodgment and phoned 95,100 entities to further ensure they met their obligations. These activities raised approximately $1.6 billion in liabilities.

Debt

We continued to offer the measures introduced in 2009 to assist viable micro enterprises - payment arrangements free of general-interest charge for 12 months and deferred due dates for activity statement payments.
Payment arrangements were a major part of the practical support we provided to viable businesses in this segment, with around 140,000 in place at any point in time.
We suspended debt-collection action and automatically deferred due dates for tax payments for micro enterprises affected by natural disasters.
We took over 46,700 firmer and legal-recovery actions against micro enterprises choosing not to work with us, continually defaulting on agreed arrangements, or not having the capacity to pay and not taking steps to resolve their situation.
The number of tax debtors in the micro-enterprises market is around 778,000.

Superannuation

In addressing employee complaints about unpaid superannuation we have actioned 10,000 superannuation guarantee cases involving micro employers, raising approximately $152 million in unpaid superannuation and penalties.
We also undertook marketing and communication activities targeted at employers in high-risk industries, including the computer system design and related services, accommodation and accounting service industries. As a result of our previous activities, including targeted communication activities, we received almost 16,000 voluntary statements raising a further $45 million in unpaid superannuation.
We undertook over 4,600 reviews of the superannuation guarantee compliance of high-risk employers, including employers in the industries of road freight transport, automotive repair and electrical services, raising $109 million in unpaid superannuation, mainly in the micro-market segments.
We reviewed the regulatory compliance of over 11,100 self-managed superannuation funds, raising approximately $5 million in liabilities and resulting in a range of actions including making 70 self-managed superannuation funds non-complying, winding up 10 funds, issuing 154 enforceable undertakings and disqualifying over 312 trustees. We also issued 184 formal notices to taxpayers, promoters and third parties for access and information.
We undertook over 900 audits and reviews and issued 1,500 tailored advice mail-outs, across all market segments relating to the income tax obligations of self-managed superannuation funds. These activities raised around $10 million in tax liabilities and resulted in a decrease in some of the more obvious errors.

GST

Our telephone and field verification checks resulted in over 30,000 activity statements being adjusted.
We undertook over 40,000 reviews and audits in the micro market raising net GST liabilities of approximately $435 million.
We conducted around 12,000 small business obligations visits. These activities included over

9,000 business assistance visits
3,000 obligations support visits
130 national Indigenous program - assistance visits completed under the small business obligations and Indigenous sector compliance risks.

Cash economy

We increased our scrutiny of businesses deliberately not reporting their cash income, with over 1.4 million small business evaluated against our sophisticated risk-detection systems and over 16,000 businesses directly contacted through our compliance activities. These compliance activities, aimed at detecting and dealing with those not paying their fair share, have raised around $151 million in liabilities. Our analysis shows that businesses subjected to compliance activity generally pay more tax in subsequent tax returns following our activity.
Our small business benchmarks and associated compliance activity raised taxpayer awareness of the record-keeping obligations of all businesses. We wrote to over 107,000 taxpayers and their tax agents regarding their performance against small business benchmarks and other cash economy risk indicators. Our analysis shows that the taxpayers we wrote to increased the amount of GST they reported in subsequent periods and around 1,400 taxpayers voluntarily disclosed additional income they had not disclosed in returns lodged for previous years.
We received 23,600 calls to our tax evasion hotline (1800 060 062) and 17,100 letters and emails. All the information we receive from the community is evaluated and informs our compliance risk programs. For example, this information resulted in us identifying around 24,000 taxpayers with outstanding lodgment obligations.

Sections within Appendix

Last Modified: Friday, 1 July 2011