Lodgment Program 2011-12 - guiding principles

The Lodgment Working Group is guided by a set of principles when developing the annual lodgment program. The program endeavours to meet the needs of all stakeholders, and takes into account:

• registered tax agent and BAS agent workloads
• ATO revenue obligations
• government and community expectations.

All registered agents have a responsibility to do everything possible to meet the lodgment program. Documents should be lodged progressively up to and including the relevant end date. The lodgment program is designed to help registered agents to spread their workload and not for the benefit of their clients. There is a responsibility on the Lodgment Working Group and us to do everything possible to develop a lodgment program that is manageable and achievable by registered agents.

The lodgment program guiding principles is a living document and evolves over time. The guiding principles for 2011-12 are listed below:

• Recognition that there is a need for a lodgment program for all registered agents that
• acknowledges whole-of-practice registered agent workloads
• promotes progressive lodgment with high risk and/or high revenue clients being the first priority
• acknowledges that registered agents play an important role in their clients' lodgment behaviour and applies our compliance model to secure lodgment
• smoothes workflow for the registered agent, but is not a series of tailored deferrals for specific clients of the registered agent
• adopts an integrated approach to lodgment with most lodgment obligations in the program
• moves towards an increasingly simplified range of due dates and administrative procedures, without sacrificing other requirements
• minimises deferral and remission requests by extending as much flexibility as possible to registered agents, while recognising other stakeholder needs
• facilitates the raising and collection of revenue within the financial year
• facilitates progressive collection of information over the year for our budget estimates and compliance activities, goods and services tax (GST) and pay as you go (PAYG) instalment updates
• acknowledges the business capacity of registered agents and us.
• Recognition that, when creating a lodgment program
• it is a consultative process with registered agents and their representatives
• it is essential for our administrative processes and drives the collection of information and revenue
• we work with registered agents to minimise the effects of ongoing changes in tax law, changes in the tax profession and new government initiatives.
• Recognition that the lodgment program is not only a list of due dates and
• the dates in the program are end dates (documents should be lodged progressively up to and including the date listed)
• the full program includes a breakdown and description of the obligation types and additional information to help registered agents manage the program.
• Recognition that the lodgment program will not apply to all clients - for example, it will not apply to taxpayers with a poor lodgment record, previously prosecuted taxpayers or clients who operate on an approved substituted accounting period.