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Saving Grace On Shortfall Penalties

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has heard from community and tax agents that people should have a chance to correct their mistakes when they get their tax wrong, provided there isn’t dishonest intent behind their errors, and is taking a new approach that seems to be having positive effects.

Under this new approach, if the ATO finds an error on a tax return or an activity statement during an audit or a review, the taxpayer may be eligible for automatic penalty relief. This means the ATO will show the taxpayer where they made the error, won’t apply a penalty and will educate the taxpayer on getting it right in the future.

In the first 6 months of the initiative, the ATO has assisted thousands of individuals and small businesses with errors on their tax returns or activity statements, and shortfall penalties for “failure to take reasonable care” and “not having a reasonably arguable position” have been reduced by 89.2% for individuals and 83.8% for small businesses.

Examples of use of the initiative include the following:

  • An individual incorrectly claims self-education expenses on their tax return. This error would have usually incurred a penalty of $788.55, but under the initiative, the penalty was not applied
  • A small business owner made an error on their company tax return relating to deductions on motor vehicles and other work-related expenses. Thanks to penalty relief, a penalty of $1,090.13 was not applied by the ATO

 

 

The information contained on this website and in this article is general in nature and does not take into account your personal situation. You should consider whether the information is appropriate to your needs, and where appropriate, seek professional advice from a financial adviser. Taxation, legal and other matters referred to on this website and in this article are of a general nature only and are based on our interpretation of laws existing at the time and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Those laws may change from time to time.

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