WHAT EVERYONE OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE EXTENT OF RISK.
The Australian Taxation Office's (ATO) estimates suggest
that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted revenue which fell very short
of its compliance and receivables targets. The compliance revenue
target suffered a $1.3 billion shortfall ($15 billion target) while
its receivables deficit crystallised at $8 billion ($53 billion
target) in the 2020 calendar year. Despite this, positive news was
in circulation in December 2020 when economic reports indicated
that the various relief and stimulus packages had taken effect,
with Australia 1GDP increasing by 3.3 in the September
2020 quarter.
With the uptick in economic indicators at 2020's end, it is
with increasingly likelihood that the ATO will refocus its
activities to collecting historical tax liabilities. How this
collection effort might look is a key question and is likely
dictated by how aggressively the ATO pursues such action.
Presumably the ATO will take significant
