ATO service developments stalled following outages

In an address at the Tax Institution National Convention 2017, Mr Jordan said the ATO has set about fixing the major irritants with the portal and client correspondence list.

“We began to implement the new practitioner lodgement service, and developed additional online functionality available through practice management software. We also made good progress working with the profession to develop and test new online services for 2017,” said Mr Jordan.

“However, and as you would appreciate, these further developments are on hold until we have stabilised the performance of our systems for Tax Time 2017 to match the service and experience of last year.”

Mr Jordan said the ATO has therefore only partly delivered our commitments from last year’s convention.

“We did fix the major irritants with the portal and replaced the correspondence list with the client communication list; we progressed implementation of the practitioner lodgement service with software providers, albeit with relatively slow take-up; but we are yet to provide the enhanced online functionality,” he said.

The ATO’s primary focus he said is on the full remediation of recent outages and preparing the systems for tax time as well as implementing other mandatory policy and legislation changes.

“We are taking a very measured and considered approach to minimise risks, to ensure that the experience of Tax Time 2016 can be matched, that we meet our commitments to government and that we offer you stability in our portal service.”