Motor vehicle registries data matching program protocol The ATO will match the data provided by the State and Territory motor vehicle registering authorities against the ATO’s taxpayer records with the objective of identifying those who may not be meeting their [...]
"Outrageous" deductions rejected The ATO has published some of the most unusual claims that they disallowed last financial year. Nearly 700,000 taxpayers claimed almost $2 billion of ‘other’ expenses, but the ATO's systematic review of claims had found, and disallowed, [...]
Single Touch Payroll Update Employers with 19 or fewer employees are required to start reporting through Single Touch Payroll (‘STP’) from 1 July 2019. The ATO will be working with employers to support them as they transition to STP, including [...]
Employees and payment summaries The ATO has also reminded employees that how they get their end of financial year information from their employer, showing their earnings for the year, depends on how their employer reports their income, tax and super [...]
Fast-tracking tax cuts for small and medium businesses The Government has fast-tracked the already legislated tax cuts to small and medium businesses by bringing them forward five years. Companies with an aggregated turnover of less than $50 million will have [...]
Increased scrutiny of home office claims Last year, 6.7 million taxpayers claimed a record $7.9 billion in deductions for ‘other work-related expenses’, which includes home office expenses. Reportedly, due to a high number of mistakes, errors and questionable claims for [...]
Super guarantee payable on ‘public holidays’ and ‘additional hours’! The Federal Court has held that superannuation guarantee contributions were payable with respect to the ‘additional hours’ and ‘public holidays’ component of annualised salaries paid by BlueScope Steel, on the basis [...]
Latest ATO benchmarks released The ATO has released the latest benchmarks for small business based on the data from 2014 income tax returns and business activity statements, covering over 1.3 million small businesses. Assistant Commissioner Matthew Bambrick said that, if [...]
Overtime Meal Allowance Amounts The reasonable amount for overtime meal allowance expenses for 2016/17, where an allowance is paid under an award, order, determination, industrial agreement or a Commonwealth, State or Territory law, is $29.40 per meal.
Cents per km deduction rate for motor vehicle expenses The ATO has determined that the rate at which work-related motor vehicle expense deductions may be calculated using the cents per kilometre method is 66 cents per kilometre for the income [...]