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No RST for the Wicked The End of Paper from the ATO - 14th January 2022
No RST for
the Wicked The End of Paper from the ATO
The Australian
Taxation Office (ATO) announced in March 2020 that they were going to cease
sending paper activity statements. This applies to forms R, S and T. These
forms are:
R (quarterly
Pay As You Go PAYG instalment notice),
S (quarterly
Goods and Service Tax GST instalment notice), and
T (quarterly
Goods and Service Tax GST and PAYG instalment notice).
As you can
imagine, there was an instant backlash from the Accounting and Tax community as
many taxpayers relied on those papers forms to pay their instalments.
Some of the
Accounting Bodies and the ATO then developed an "interim solution" that to date
still does not work very well. Here is how it is intended to work:
1. For clients
with their preference set to Digital, paper activity statements will stop.
2. If you or we
lodge a quarterly activity statement electronically and you lodge your own
monthly activity statement by paper, paper activity statements will stop.
3. If you or we
lodge a one-off electronic revision of a quarterly activity statement and you
lodge your own activity statement by paper, paper activity statements will
stop.
4. If you or we
lodge or vary an instalment amount online for a client and you normally receive
paper instalment notices, paper instalment notices will stop.
5. If you have
a MyGov account and link it to the ATO, paper activity statements will stop.
You can see a
pattern developing here. If you or we deal with the ATO on your behalf electronically
or online, the ATO will stop sending paper activity statements or paper
instalment notices. It is incredibly
frustrating to oversee a system that moves like quicksand. The irony of course
is the ATO sends out the non-payment reminders, wait for it, BY PAPER! We had a lot of clients contact us to say
they received the non-payment reminder but not the original quarterly activity
statement. The five scenarios above are the reasons why.
The good news
is that if we attach your email address to the ATO preferences and your
preferences are set to Digital, the ATO will send you an emailed reminder 21
days before the due date. The ATO also
recognise that electronic communications is not for everyone, so they will make
exceptions, in limited circumstances and revert you to paper. But you need to
call them directly to make this happen.
We are sending
you this newsletter because we have just clicked
over a new quarter (and New Year obviously). The December 2021 quarterly
activity statements will be issued soon.
If you usually receive a quarterly activity statement by paper and have
not received your December 2021 statement by 31 January 2022, can you
please contact our office and we will check your ATO preferences.
Also, for those
of you who have MyGov and have it linked to the ATO, make sure your
notifications in MyGov are switched on. They too send an email or a text to
alert you that you have mail in your MyGov account.
Here is an ATO
link with more information - ATO
link here. Once again we thank you for your patience in this rapidly
changing world of ours and as always, if you have any questions or concerns
please contact our office.