The ATO sends more than 140 million letters and messages to Australians each year and invests considerable taxpayer funded resources into developing and distributing them. 

But many people still say they find some letters confusing, too technical, and their tone can cause unnecessary stress and anxiety. 

We conducted this review because the ATO has a responsibility to engage with taxpayers in ways that make it easy to understand their obligations and any actions they need to take. 

The review looked at the ATO’s process for designing and testing high volume letters and examined a sample of some of the most complex letters.

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Financial abuse can happen to anyone. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that 1 in 6 women (16% or 1.6 million women) and 1 in 13 men (7.8% or 745,000 men) have experienced economic abuse by an intimate partner. Financial abuse can occur through many different types of practices, including weaponisation of the tax system. The impacts on victim-survivors (and their families) can be devastating and long lasting, with substantial financial burdens and ongoing instability and stress caused by debts they did not personally incur.

We conducted this review because more needs to be done to understand how the tax system is being weaponised and what action is required from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to address it and provide appropriate support and remediation for those affected.

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The report on objections finalises a review that has been conducted over several years, including the publication of an interim report on 10 October 2022.

Objections are an essential part of the tax system and are often the only affordable option open to many taxpayers to challenge tax office decisions. We believe it’s imperative that the function is easily accessed and operates without undue delays.

Our report has recommended changes to make it faster and simpler for all taxpayers to lodge an objection with the ATO. The report highlights 4 areas of improvement:

• increasing accessibility by extending online lodgement to all taxpayers
• streamlining processes to reduce time and resources devoted to high volume, low risk objections
• increasing taxpayer engagement to speed up the time taken to complete an objection
• learning lessons from objections to prevent the number of objections needing to be made.

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This is the interim report of our own initiative investigation into tax identity fraud, focusing on the importance of bank account integrity. The report focuses on the ATO’s risk management controls to prevent fraudsters from changing the bank account details on legitimate taxpayers’ ATO accounts, which is a fundamental step in obtaining fraudulent refunds from the tax system.

This is the interim report of our own initiative investigation into tax identity fraud, focusing on the importance of bank account integrity. The report focuses on the ATO’s risk management controls to prevent fraudsters from changing the bank account details on legitimate taxpayers’ ATO accounts, which is a fundamental step in obtaining fraudulent refunds from the tax system.

Following the commencement of our investigation, the Tax Ombudsman received numerous submissions from the taxpayer and tax practitioner community that raised concerns about the ATO’s lack of action in detecting and preventing tax identity fraud. We also investigated ATO actions taken in response to potential tax identity fraud that were the subject of taxpayer disputes (unresolved complaints).

We make 13 recommendations for ATO improvement in this interim (Phase 1) report.

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This report examines the discretionary statutory power for the Commissioner of Taxation to temporarily modify the operation of taxation law provisions where those provisions give rise to unintended or unforeseen outcomes.

The report explores the ATO’s approach to receiving, considering and determining which issues are suitable for the exercise of the power and the reasons why candidates may fail. The report identifies a number of opportunities for improvement.

Documents and downloads

This report examines the nature and purpose of the Commissioner’s General Powers of Administration (GPA). Through five case studies, the report examines how the GPA is exercised. Although many unremarkable decisions are made each day under the GPA, significant decisions such as settlement of tax disputes and implementation of relief measures during the COVID-19 pandemic also rely upon the GPA.

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This report shares insights, observations and recommendations to improve the ATO’s administration of the Small Business Litigation Funding Program, which arose during Tax Ombudsman investigations of unresolved complaints (disputes) that were lodged by small businesses and legal practitioners.

The Small Business Litigation Funding Program was initiated by a 2019 Government measure. It was aimed at levelling the playing field for unrepresented small businesses in the Small Business Tax Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in cases where the ATO chose to engage a barrister to represent it.

In practice, the ATO gives an up-front commitment to make a specified amount of funding available and to reimburse some of the small business’s representation costs.

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This investigation examines the effectiveness of the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) communications to taxpayers and their representatives of their taxpayers’ rights to review, complain and appeal decisions made and actions taken by the ATO.

The investigation involved an examination of a case sample of written communications of ATO decisions made – for clear communication of the taxpayers’ rights to review, complain and appeal these decisions. The communication of taxpayers’ rights is an important feature of procedural fairness and is consistent with the Taxpayers’ Charter. These rights and the community’s awareness of them is important for maintaining confidence in the fairness of the tax administration system.

Tax Ombudsman survey

Between August and September 2020, we engaged Orima Research Pty Ltd to conduct a voluntary and independent survey to gauge taxpayers’ and tax professionals’ views on the effectiveness of ATO communications on taxpayers’ right to review, complain and appeal decisions.

The survey comprised 10 questions (of which 3 sought demographic information from respondents). A list of the questions is available for download.

A total of 69 respondents participated. Some respondents chose not to answer certain questions.

Documents and downloads