As a world-leading tax administrator, the ATO has well-established systems of oversight and management. These include governance across day-to-day operations, and integration of risk with strategy, planning and performance.
The collection of GST revenue includes optimising voluntary compliance, by effectively and efficiently managing the administrative and compliance risks to the GST system.
GST administrative risk is the impact of uncertainty on our ability to meet these objectives:
- Best practice
- Digital transformation
- Transparency
- Cooperative relationships.
Best practice
Schedule A of the GST Administration Performance Agreement (Performance Agreement) provides a range of agreed measures in the following categories:
- Maintain compliance
- Client engagement outcomes
- Cost-effective administration.
By reporting against these measures, the ATO can demonstrate it has achieved best practice.
Achieving best practice in the eyes of the community can be reflected in levels of trust and community confidence. We conduct regular research to measure the levels of confidence in the ATO held by the general community, as well as clients who have recently interacted with us. In 2021–22, 85% of those surveyed felt that the ATO is effectively managing the tax system.
We also continue to be a leading voice for best practice in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forums dealing with international VAT/GST matters. Through this and our bilateral engagements with other jurisdictions, we promote international consistency in applying value-added taxes.
Digital transformation
The ATO holds and has access to a wealth of data we use to make it easier for people to comply with their obligations, and hard not to. The emergence of new analytical tools, increased digitalisation and availability of data offer significant opportunities to enhance tax administration and reduce the burden on business.
The ATO has a strong commitment to growing our data and analytics capability, to the extent that it features as one of our 7 strategic initiatives in our 2021–22 corporate plan. This builds on our work over recent years to become an organisation that is more integrated, streamlined and data driven. This initiative is focused on improving the way we collect, manage, share and use data to build confidence and drive actions that maximise value for the ATO and the community.
Contemporising GST Risk Model project
The Contemporising GST Risk Model (CGRM) project ensures we are better equipped to keep pace with the changing risk environment by using sophisticated analytical techniques.
We are reducing the burden on business by making it easier for clients to manage and report their GST obligations. For example, we use analytical techniques to deliver tailored nudge messaging and automation at the time clients interact with us – to help them identify and correct genuine errors prior to lodgment.
This year we enhanced some of our risk models, to help identify new risk behaviours and apply treatments in a more streamlined way. These models quickly identified an increase in sophisticated and changing threats from fraudsters and other high-risk taxpayers. The level of confidence in our contemporary risk assessment capability enabled us to shape the treatment strategy of the risk, and implement improved processes to protect the integrity of the GST system in operations such as Operation Protego.
Improving the online client experience
We aim to improve the experience of our clients by interacting with them at the right time and providing certainty in our communication. We are enhancing our online services to meet the growing demand for digital interactions that enable clients to easily manage their interactions at a time that suits them. In 2021–22, 79% of clients surveyed believed the ATO is making good use of technology to make it easier, an improvement from 73% in 2020–21.
We encourage clients to shift to our online services. In 2021–22, 92% of the BAS lodged were lodged online, compared with 81% in 2017–18.
Since 1 August 2021, Online services for business became the default online service for businesses to interact with us via a secure digital platform. This facility has a streamlined and contemporary design and enables clients to access it anywhere, at any time and on a range of devices.
Australian Business Registry Services
Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS) is streamlining how businesses interact with government and manage their registry obligations, providing a unified source of trusted business information.
To improve register integrity, ABRS delivered programs to remove non-entitled Australian business numbers (ABN) from the Australian Business Register (ABR). ABRS used new approaches to do this, including notifying entities of the ‘intent to cancel’ their ABN while providing them with an opportunity to retain it via a simple interactive voice recognition option.
This work led to over 1,200 clients initiating cancellations, with the Registrar assisting a further 718,000 clients to cancel. ABRS will expand the program to incorporate entities with active GST roles that are identified as having a high likelihood of no longer requiring GST registration.
GST Digital Strategy
The GST Digital Strategy highlights what we aim to achieve as we move towards 2030 – namely, to be a leading GST administration known for contemporary service, expertise and integrity. This strategy will protect the GST system and improve the performance, productivity and experience for all participants through 4 key areas:
- Data and analytics – enable greater visibility and more powerful intelligence through enhanced data coverage, integrity and quality, as well as analytics capability and output
- Digital engagement – engage proactively with our clients to provide real-time support using digital channels as the primary means of engagement
- Compliance automation – embed and automate GST-related activities through natural systems to reduce costs for our clients and improve compliance
- Administrative excellence – shape the GST legislation to enable a digital future.
Transparency
The ATO is transparent in its accountability to states and territories through regular updates at GST Policy and Administration Sub-group (GPAS) and GST Administration Sub-Committee (GSTAS), and incorporating the following 4 schedules into this report:
- Schedule A – reports against the performance outcome measures specified in the Performance Agreement
- Schedule B – reports on the GST program deliverables that form the GST administration budget and provides the GST administration cost statement, which is a special-purpose financial report
- Schedule C – provides monitoring and review arrangements
- Schedule D – reports against the performance outcome measures for the ‘MYEFO 2018 Measure: Additional Funding – GST Compliance Program’.
Cooperative relationships
The ATO has maintained and further enhanced cooperative relationships with key stakeholders, in particular:
- the states and territories
- the Treasury
- the Department of Home Affairs (Home Affairs).
We work collaboratively with Treasury to manage our working relationship with the states and territories primarily through GPAS. This enables the ATO to consult more effectively with the states and territories, inform them of risks and issues, and co-design initiatives to achieve improved outcomes.
With the resumption of international travel in late 2021 we renewed our focus on the Tourist Refund Scheme. We continue to work closely with Home Affairs to address issues associated with the scheme, particularly those presented by Australian travellers.
The ATO also worked with the GST Stewardship Group, using members' GST knowledge and experience to:
- gain insight into issues faced by taxpayers
- help the ATO improve the GST system's future operation
- communicate key ATO messages to the broader community.