The government will now also facilitate sharing of single touch payroll data with state and territory governments on an ongoing basis to cater for pre-filling payroll tax returns.
For businesses in manufacturing, importing and distribution in the alcohol and fuel sectors, the government will enable those with an annual turnover of less than $50 million to lodge and pay excise and excise-equivalent customs duty on a quarterly basis, from 1 July 2023.
There have also been changes to the tax risk management and governance review guide following the budget.
Tax risk is the risk that companies may be paying or accounting for an incorrect amount of tax (including both income and indirect taxes), or that the tax positions a company adopts are out of step with the tax risk appetite that the directors have authorised or believe is prudent.
The updated guide sets out principles for board-level and managerial-level responsibilities, with examples of evidence that entities can provide to demonstrate the design and operational effectiveness of their control framework for tax risk.
It was developed primarily for large and complex corporations, tax consolidated groups and foreign multinational corporations conducting business in Australia. The principles outlined can be applied to a corporation of any size if tailored appropriately. When appropriate we assess the tax governance processes of large business entities that we have under review.
However, the aim of this guide is to help businesses understand what the ATO believes better tax corporate governance practices look like and offers advice on developing or improving tax governance and internal control framework, testing the robustness of the design of a business framework against best practice benchmarks, understanding how to demonstrate the operational effectiveness of key internal controls to stakeholders, including the ATO.
In order to provide a “whole of tax” best practice framework, this guide has been updated in January 2018 to include excise and indirect taxes including GST, luxury car tax (LCT), wine equalisation tax (WET), as well as to “fuel tax” entitlements (FTCs) and obligations arising under the Fuel Tax Act 2006 in addition to the original income tax guidance.
