THE NEWS WRAP: The ATO set to target 46,000 businesses for under-reporting

The Australian Tax Office is to target 46,000 businesses suspected of under-reporting their case sales.

The ATO will investigate a total of 110,000 tax payers, with independent contractors set to also face scrutiny over their cash incomes. Cash benchmarks have been put in place for around 600,000 small businesses as part of the ATO’s crackdown on non-compliance.

Gmail problems fixed, say Google

Gmail has been fully restored after nearly a week of problems, according to Google. The search engine giant has apologised to users who lost messages or were unable to log into accounts and admitted that a small number of people may still experience difficulties.

Google blamed a “software storage update” bug for causing the shutdown of thousands of Gmail accounts on Monday.

Building approvals slump

Building approvals crashed by 15.9% in January, as a result of floods that severely impacted the industry.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the private sector dropped by 2.4%, while ‘other dwellings’, which includes the commercial sector, fell by 30.8%.

Overnight

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 181.41 points to 12,248.21. The Australian dollar was down slightly, to 101.44 US cents.