ATO taskforce recovers billions from big business tax avoiders

The Australian Taxation Office’s Tax Avoidance Taskforce helped generate an additional $7.6 billion in revenue during the 2022-23 financial year, according to the revenue authority’s annual report.

The taskforce, which began operations in 2016, raised more than $6.4 billion from public and multinational businesses in 2022-23, with $4.4 billion coming from earlier interventions in the oil and gas sector.

“Our interventions, paired with strong commodity prices, mean some oil and gas companies are now among the biggest taxpayers in Australia,” wrote ATO commissioner Chris Jordan in the foreword to the 282-page report.

Overall, the ATO collected $730 billion in tax and refunded $154 billion in the last financial year. The difference — $576 million — represents an increase in the government coffers of $60.6 billion (or 11.8%) compared with the previous year.

Jordan said other areas of activity ensured more revenue entered the nation’s coffers.

“This includes the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce ($139 million in cash collections); the Shadow Economy program ($1.4 billion in cash collections); and the joint‑agency Phoenix Taskforce ($108 million in cash collections),” the ATO commissioner explained.

Tax debt also increased across parts of the economy with small business debt having increased from $26.5 billion in June 2019 — six months before the coronavirus pandemic hit – to $50.2 billion at the conclusion of the 2022-23 financial year.

“It’s our responsibility to ensure a level playing field as we support businesses who are doing the right thing and paying on time,” Jordan said.

“For those who have been unwilling to work with us, we took strong and deliberate action as we increased our activities across debt collection.”

The ATO also published what it calls its “client landscape” in its annual report.

This reveals that ATO dealt with 12.1 million individuals not in business, 984,000 employees, 225,000 not-for-profit organisations, 42,500 public and multinational businesses as well as 4.2 million small businesses over the 2022-23 financial year.

This article was first published by The Mandarin.