How will the ATO be addressing some of the big challenges in 2025–26?
Prevention is always better than the cure. It’s never been more important for you, as an employer, to stay on top of reporting, lodgment and payment deadlines to avoid extra paperwork, charges and penalties.
'Good payroll governance' may sound boring, but it’s the foundation of a well-run business, and needs to be appropriate for your entity's structure, size, complexity and industry.
Prioritise getting your tax and super obligations right, and you won’t get caught up in costly and time-consuming errors down the track.
We have a comprehensive data-matching and risk identification process to identify where we think businesses are non-compliant with their obligations. We do try and encourage businesses to meet their obligations, and we see most businesses, after receiving a nudge, act quickly to rectify their mistakes. However, businesses that fail to act after receiving a reminder can face review or audit activity. While we’re here to help, for those employers who don’t get it right – and make deliberate choices to avoid tax and super obligations – we’ll take action.
What are the biggest changes since you started in this role?
Over the past 2 years we’ve been heavily investing in understanding the complexity of those businesses who employ staff. With nearly one million employers ranging from small businesses to large corporations, we know a 'one size fits all' ATO approach doesn’t work.
By better understanding what employers need from the ATO, we’ve been able to fine tune our communications and compliance work. Some businesses may just need a nudge to comply, but others need firmer action.
What should employers do to kick off the new financial year?
I know how crunched for time people are, and that paying tax and super isn’t one of the fun things about running your own show, but it’s the critical part of your business.
The overwhelming majority of businesses that end up in our audit program reached that point after falling behind with tax and super payments. Successful businesses invest time and effort in payroll governance and managing their cashflow, so check out our Cash Flow Tips.
If you’ve been in business for a while, do a stocktake of how you’re complying with your tax and super obligations:
- Is your software system up to date?
- Are you on track with your lodgments and payments?
- Are you allocating employee transactions correctly in your software?
- Do you tag employee benefits so you can calculate your fringe benefits?
- Do you need to check in with your registered agent?
- We get a large number of voluntary disclosures each year that are the result of a new person coming in and looking at the payroll and finding errors.
If you’re about to start a new business and will be employing staff, check out the range of information we have on ato.gov. For example, employers on the smaller side of the business world can find useful tips in our Essentials to strengthen your small businessExternal Link to avoid common mistakes across the lifecycle from start-up to winding down. Our information is designed to help employers get it right from the beginning.
What are you personally looking forward to this financial year?
I’m really excited about identifying different and innovative ways we can support businesses to stay on track.
We’re continuing to pilot new strategies and trial treatments, such as contacting businesses earlier to help them understand their obligations or correct common errors early to prevent a minor issue growing into a major headache.
Another really exciting approach has been to contact tax agents about their employer clients who may not have met their FBT obligations. This two-way engagement supports tax agents to have the information they need to have the right conversations with their clients.
I often hear about people looking for ways to avoid the 'tax man', but it's important people realise that the tax they pay goes to support the community, schools, hospitals and roads. So, those not paying what they should are negatively impacting the services that make Australia such a great place to live.
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