What is Tax Assured and the ATO’s justified trust program? The ATO’s Justified trust program comes originally from work done by the OECD and now implemented in Australia (and other OECD countries). Some background; in Australian we have what is called a self assessment system where we (taxpayers) work out our taxable income and send it to the Tax Office who issues an Assessment assessing the tax payable. All things being equal the ATO accepts that the numbers supplied are correct, having to conduct an audit if they suspect wrong doing.
The Justified Trust Program seeks to change this by performing what is basically an Audit of taxpayers each year in enough details that they consider that the tax position is assured or correct. Initially the Justified Trust program only applied to the top 100 Companies in Australia, it was very successful at both collecting more tax as well as lifting confidence in tax assessments so the program has now been expanded to the “next 5000” as well as private wealthy groups. The approach and regularity in these different groups varies but is underpinned by the same concepts and goals. What can you do to understand this and lower your risk?
- The vast majority of groups are actively participating in the Justified Trust and Next 5000 programs but there are some groups who are refusing. I suggest it is in your interest to work with the Tax Office, while it is an increased burden to engage with the Tax Office it does also give you peace of mind that in the future you will not have a retrospective audit as you have already disclosed any major transactions.
- Risks Marked to Market: There is some mis understanding of this key part of the program; once you are a TaxPayer who is large enough to be included in these programs the ATO expects you to review ATO rulings, TaxPayer alerts and Practical Compliance Guidance. This is a key way the Tax Office notifies tax payers of risk they see.
- Keep neat records, lodge and pay on time. Seems simple but it is not always easy to achieve, late lodgement and/or payment increases the Risk rating the tax office applies to taxpayers (of all types and sizes!)
Author Alan Maddick May 11th 2022.