ATO's Tax Collections Soar To New Record

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

24 December 2007

The Australia Taxation Office (ATO) has published the eighty-sixth edition of its annual report, which gives performance updates and figures for the year to June.

The report showed that a record $15.4 billion extra (or 6.6%) was collected, bringing net tax collections to $248 billion. This was $4.9 billion (or 2%) above Budget forecast, the ATO revealed.

This year, the ATO has also provided $9.3 billion in transfers and payments (not including GST input tax credits and income tax refunds), which was 25.0% more than last year.

The report went on to highlight the launch of a new organisation-wide system, and business processes for managing its case, contact and correspondence work and content development.

In addition, the report revealed, the ATO has also successfully implemented 83 new legislative measures, including the Better Super measures and stage two of the taxation of financial arrangements.

The tax authority has also collected approximately $39.6 billion in GST for state and territory governments during the period in question, and has fully met its commitments to them under the GST performance agreement.

Finally, the report showed that some 82% of taxpayers and 87% of businesses agree that the Taxation Office is doing a good job, and 90% of tax agents feel that the ATO's systems and processes are being improved to make it easy for them to deal with the tax system.

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