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Non-lodgment

Avoiding or delaying payment of tax by not lodging your tax obligations when required will attract our attention.

Last updated 23 August 2022

Our focus

We focus on occasions when taxpayers avoid or delay paying taxes by not lodging their tax return, fringe benefit tax (FBT) return or activity statement when required.

Our focus is targeted by applying improved data matching processes across a range of sources that identify entities who have:

  • received income and are required to lodge an income tax return or activity statement but haven't done so
  • lodged an income tax return or activity statement but haven't reported all their income.

Examples of non-lodgment

Examples include when an entity has:

  • not lodged and has a high amount of incoming and outgoing cash amounts
  • not lodged a return when returns for previous and subsequent years had been lodged
  • lodged business activity statements during the year but did not lodge a tax return
  • not lodged and has reportable fringe benefits amounts included in their employee's payment summaries or STP reporting.

Other things we look at

We also look at:

  • outstanding business activity statements
  • entities that did not lodge a return for the year under review and where instalments are low compared to the previous year
  • directors with a number of outstanding lodgments
  • directors who lodge a return not necessary.

QC58472