What can I complain about?

• timeliness of responses or interactions with you 
• consideration of facts, evidence and your circumstances; 
• completeness of reasons for decisions; 
• conduct of Australian Tax Office (ATO) or Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) officers 
• availability of services (such as ATO online) 
• the rate you are taxed by law 
• rules dealing with such an amount. 

We cannot investigate complaints on: 

If you are unsure if we can handle your complaint, give our us a call on 1300 448 829. Our team will be able to provide guidance on where to go, if we aren’t able to. 

What outcomes to expect

Possible outcomes from your investigation are: 

• Reconsideration: the ATO or TPB may reconsider a decision because our investigation provided clarification of facts or identified procedural issues 
• An update: the ATO or TPB may change or update their policies, procedures, or systems because our investigation recommended areas of improvement 
• Assurance: you may gain assurance from our investigation that the ATO or TPB’s actions or decisions were lawful and fair 
• Understanding: you may gain a better insight into how the ATO or TPB came to their outcome with a more detailed explanation in  
• Apology: the ATO or TPB may provide an apology because our investigation identified that a mistake had occurred. 

We are a free and independent service. Our investigations look to correct errors in tax administration and to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome for you. We will always ask you what outcome you are seeking but we cannot guarantee that it will be the outcome we seek or that it will be achieved. We encourage you to be realistic and practical about your desired outcomes  (Refer to What outcomes to expect and Our limitations for more details).

Our limitations

We cannot: 

• compel the ATO or TPB to comply with our recommendations or change their decision 
• decide how much tax you should pay 
• investigate the legislation imposing tax liabilities or the quantification of those liabilities 
• investigate the ATO workplace relations issues 
• investigate the ATO’s handling of Freedom of Information requests, Public Interest Disclosures or the non-tax elements of cross-agency complaints that involve the ATO 
• provide you with advice about how to structure your tax affairs 
• provide you with advice relating to legal arguments
• assist you with decisions made by other government agencies. 

Although we cannot compel the ATO or TPB to change their decision, you may have other review rights and may be able to:

• request an ATO internal review
• lodge an objection with the ATO
• submit a defence to a Director Penalty Notice (DPN)
• refer the matter to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) or the Federal Court.

While we cannot guarantee the decision will change, we will look into how the decision was made. This includes checking whether the facts, evidence, your personal situation, and the reasons given were properly considered. For more details, see the section called ‘Complaints we can handle’.

Read some successful tax complaints

Get an idea if we can help you, by reading our case studies. Our case studies are investigations we have undertake with successful resolutions. We publish our recent case studies in our publication search.

Contact us

If you are still uncertain if we can help you, give us a call on 1300 44 88 29.

We ask you to cooperate with our staff who are handling your complaint. Please treat us with the same courtesy, consideration and respect that we provide you, remembering that we are here to help with your complaint and we are not its cause. We reserve the right to not respond to complaints that contain abuse, inflammatory statements or material intended to intimidate.