Micro-businesses owe ATO billions: report
Financial planners with clients in the small business sector are likely to see some renewed activity on the tax collections front in the wake of a new report issued by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).
That report, tabled in Parliament this week, found micro-businesses are responsible for a substantial slice of the debt owed to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
The ANAO said micro-businesses (those turning over less than $2 million a year) accounted for 67 per cent of the collectable debt outstanding as at June 30, 2006.
The report said micro-business tax debt as at the end of the last financial year was made up of 607,109 cases of $4.471 billion in outstanding Business Activity Statement (BAS) collectable debt, and 238,511 cases of $2.003 billion in outstanding income tax collectable debt (54.4 per cent of total income tax collectable debt value).
The ANAO made a number of recommendations to the ATO on how to deal with the growing level of debt, including closer monitoring, better research into the common characteristics of debtor businesses, closer liaison with other Government agencies and a refinement of its preventive and punitive measures.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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