The Commissioner on Tue 3.6.2014, spoke at the Corporate Tax Association annual convention. Mr Jordan said the ATO has been consulting on External Compliance Assurance (sometimes referred to as external compliance assurance process or ECAP). ECAP aims to leverage already rigorous external audit and assurance processes for public companies and give some taxpayers with turnovers of between id=”mce_marker”00m and $5bn the opportunity to use their company auditors to review factual matters the ATO has an interest, Mr Jordan said. Further, he announced the ATO was “now ready to pilot this approach and this is likely to start this month”.
Mr Jordan said the ATO was also “driving sensible closure to unnecessarily long-running cases and audits”. “Continuing dialogue for 5 years or more is not productive, prevents closure and damages trust,” he said.
The Commissioner also reported that the he was pleased with the results from the ATO’s independent review function set up in July last year for income tax audits of large businesses. As at the end of April 2014, 14 cases of independent review had been completed, with 6 and a half in the taxpayer’s favour. Of the 7 and a half in the ATO’s favour, 6 of those cases were now at settlement stage.
Other key points from the speech:
- remedial power for Commissioner – the ATO has recently concluded a consultation process with Treasury and the tax profession drafting a joint statement of intent. Mr Jordan said the ATO was “now preparing to package up a proposal with Treasury to Government, to progress this concept.”
- new leadership team at the ATO – the ATO will announce new appointments to Chief Tax Counsel and Deputy Chief Tax Counsel “shortly”; and
- new mission statement – the new mission of the ATO is “to contribute to the economic and social wellbeing of Australians by fostering willing participation in the tax and superannuation systems”.
[LTN 106, 4/6/14]