One of the effects of the slimming down of the Australian Tax Office in the recent Federal Budget announcement, will be the need for the ATO to move its functionality online.
And the ATO is preparing for this switch. From April 2014, those who lodge PAYG Withholding Annual Reports, TFN Declarations, Annual Investment Income Reports, Quarterly TFN Reports and Taxable Payment Annual Reports will be getting messages from the ATO pushing them to embrace this online direction.
The ATO plans to close its Media Information Processing Service (MIPs) which currently allows for lodgment using physical media such as USB/flash drives and disk. It also plans to switch off its Electronic Commerce Interface (ECI).
Those who have relied on the ECI lodgment are encouraged to move to either the ATO Portals or SBR (Standard Business Reporting). Businesses can lodge using SBR if their software is SBR enabled.
Filling in the SBR gap is new service provider – GovReports which has successfully emerged as complete SBR lodgment portal, designed and developed as an independent lodgment portal for users to submit statutory reports including individual or corporation returns to ATO or multiple government agencies from the one single dashboard using AUSkey.
GovReports is not only servicing the electronic lodgment of the reports in discussion but also provides ELS for the tax practitioners as a complete lodgment solution to ATO with rich commercial features, said Tiana Tran of GovReports.
“We are SBR enabled and have provided for clients to lodge online successfully since our inception.” Ms Tran said.
Ms Tran welcomed the ATO’s pushed for online lodgment.
“It just makes sense what the ATO is finally doing. In today’s world, businesses embrace technology and are looking at ways to be part of the digital economy.”
The ATO’s online push means clients can lodge online using the File Transfer function on the Business Portal, Tax Agent or BAS Agent Portals. Lodgment and test validation reports are provided online.
Clients are able to use their current AUSkey to log onto the Portals and lodge online.
This move by the ATO towards embracing technology to improve its service delivery, is no doubt influenced by the appointment of Commissioner Chris Jordan, who has said he wanted the ATO to be more ‘user-friendly’ and to look for ways to make it easier and simpler for people to comply with their tax obligations.
And the bane for business is the level of compliance reporting that is required of them, and the complex tax system that we have.
Ms Tran said the Commissioner’s push to reinvent the ATO is welcomed as it is the centre of the tax in this country, dealing with millions of taxpayers and their tax issues every day.
For more information regarding GovReports, please contact Tiana Tran on 02 8677 9669 or visit the website at GovReports
GovReports is dedicated to provide government reporting lodgment solutions for businesses and or accounting professionals. As the only vendor today offering Standard Business Reporting (SBR) using cloud technology, delivering a reliable, faster and cheaper way of reports lodgment.
