These documents provide insight into the ATO administration of JobKeeper.
The papers found that some small businesses, which comprised the overwhelming majority of JobKeeper applications, were found to have made honest mistakes particularly during the initial stage of JobKeeper. In these cases, the ATO often determined not to seek repayments usually because the employers claimed it in good faith and passed it on to their employees.
The ATO redeployed about 3,000 staff to support the COVID stimulus measures. In relation to JobKeeper, it reviewed more than 114,000Â entities to the value of approximately $12.5Â billion. It also stopped more than $274 million of invalid claims and an estimated $767Â million of future flow-on claims through its pre and post-payment reviews.
Approximately $470 million of overpayments were identified across the entire scheme of almost $89Â billion, of which $194Â million has already been recovered.
As part of the compliance program, the ATO undertook comprehensive reviews of cases that forecast a decline in turnover and found the vast majority of taxpayers undertook the projected decline in turnover test in good faith.
From its own review of more than 1,600Â entities across all markets, we found more than 95 per cent were eligible. These entities were not chosen at random, but on the basis of perceived risk.
The ATO said that false or bad faith estimates of turnover declines or manipulation of past BAS were the rare exception.
In these cases, the businesses were required to pay back any amounts they received.
In total, close to $89Â billion in JobKeeper payments were made to more than 1 million eligible businesses, which flowed onto more than 3.8Â million individuals.
