The Commissioner of Taxation’s Annual Report for 2012-13 has been released.
The Commissioner reported that in 2012-13, the ATO collected $311.7bn in net tax (an increase of 3.6% on 2011-12) and collected $48.3bn in GST.
The Commissioner also reported the ATO has reduced its costs of collection to $0.91 per id=”mce_marker”00 (including GST) and has made greater use of alternative dispute resolution.
During the year, the ATO exchanged information on over 1,300 occasions under double tax agreements and tax information exchange agreements. The number of outgoing exchanges increased by over 17% compared to 2010-11. Further, the exchange of information cases contributed to around $480m of adjusted tax, penalties and interest.
The Commissioner noted that the impacts of the economic environment on taxpayers’ capacity and willingness to pay continue to make managing tax and superannuation debt challenging. However, in partnership with a major Australian university, the ATO is using data analysis to develop targeted debt-collection strategies based on taxpayers’ needs and behaviours. Through this analysis, the ATO will be able to distinguish between cases likely to be finalised without ATO intervention and those cases requiring debt collection action. The Commissioner said following successful pilots in 2012-13, the ATO will begin implementation in 2013-14.
Other key highlights from the report:
- the ATO prevented id=”mce_marker”89.5m of income tax revenue from being paid out where claims were incorrect or fraudulent;
- the ATO used third-party data matching to ensure correct reporting in following years – resulting in additional revenue of $939.3m;
- over 1.3m searches were undertaken through SuperSeeker, with around 390,000 searches successfully identifying nearly id=”mce_marker”.9bn in superannuation accounts;
- the ATO extended mediation by experts (such as former judges) for resolving complex disputes;
- complaints decreased by 30.5% compared to 2011-12.
[LTN 209, 29/10/13]