ATO cracks down on the wealthy
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has embarked on a "prevention-before-correction" mission to rein in on wealthy Australians and their private groups to pay the right amount of tax.
The ATO said it would increase face-to-face time with the major taxpayers to safeguard revenue.
Acting Second Commissioner Michael Cranston said the ATO will visiting the major private groups and investigate their tax affairs in real time, look at issues and try to solve them before companies lodge their tax returns.
"There are about 175 private groups controlling almost 6000 entities with more than $1 billion in turnover or $500 million in net assets and we will begin our visits by the end of the month," Cranston said.
"We risk-review all wealthy Australians and their private groups. About 30 per cent are considered high-risk and we regularly ensure they are compliant through reviews, audits and the provision of advice."
The ATO will be scouting for behaviours like tax or economic performance that is not in line with other similar businesses, low transparency of tax matters, a history of aggressive tax planning, tax outcomes incongruent with the law, and inferior governance and risk-management systems, among other issues.
But Cranston also said the ATO will sign off on the previous year's tax returns of those who have been transparent, which means about 30,000 wealthy groups will not undergo audits for a certain amount of income years.
AUTHOR
Malavika Santhebennur
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