The long-awaited report arising from the Joint Federal Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) inquiry into federal tax administration, which commenced under the former government, was released on Thursday 26 June.
CPA Australia made several submissions to the JCPAA in the course of its inquiry and also met with committee members on a number of occasions.
The main recommendations to the government contained in the report cover the following issues:
tax agents who give advice on tax evasion techniques to be subject to civil penalties
legislation can be introduced to require reporting of compliance with the Best practice regulation handbook
the government and treasury improve consultations on tax measures by increasing such consultations including use of exposure drafts of legislation
in the upcoming tax review, there should be greater focus on financial relationships and economic outcomes ahead of legal forms
the tax review should consider the topic of reducing the number of taxpayers who need to lodge a return, and simplifying the experience for those who need to lodge
the tax review should consider the benefits of harmonising with New Zealands tax system, even if just for particular taxes such as FBT or for particular classes of tax
the ATO to compare its performance in respect to the 28 day service standard for PBR requests with information on total elapsed time for these applications
the ATO to divide the large business category into medium and large businesses for assessing performance on timeliness of PBRs
where the ATO has concerns about a judicial decision, it should make these public in the decision impact statement and commit to resolving the issue within 12 months
the ATO to develop a policy to support decisions involving periods of grace where it changes its view of the law with such a period to not generally exceed 12 months
the ATO establish and monitor compliance of protocols for determining when an investigation is an audit, when the audit commences and when the taxpayer should be so informed
the ATO to amend its policies to limit the practice of issuing assessments that are contingent on each other or legislation be introduced in this regard
the ATO to increase its benchmarks for technical quality reviews of penalty and other debt decisions
ATO to publicly explain the reasoning behind its settlement offers for large scale disputes
ATO to publish in its annual report additional statistics in relation to settlements including revenue collected and other related matters
ATO to include in its annual report performance information about revenue collected through penalties and interest and the amounts subsequently remitted back to taxpayers.
