More clients could fall under ATO’s ’high-risk’ sectors

On 7 February 2018, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Black Economy Taskforce Measures No.1) Bill 2018 was introduced to Parliament, proposing to extend the TPAR system to businesses in the courier and cleaning industries, following in the footsteps of the building and construction industry.

TPAR for the cleaning and courier industries will kick in on 1 July 2018, if the bill is passed, and Institute of Public Accountants general manager of technical policy, Tony Greco, believes more industries will be brought into frame during the upcoming federal budget.

“It’s one of the black economy taskforce interim report recommendations that the government has picked up on and they are looking at extending that additional reporting to cover other sectors that are considered high risk,” said Mr Greco.

“It’s not to say more won’t get put on the list, and that’s something we probably will find out more on budget night because the black economy will have something to say.”

Mr Greco said the success of TPAR in the building and construction industry means the ATO will be looking across other sectors to “bring them back into the fold”.

“There’s already one up and running for the building and construction and I think they’ve been doing this since 2012 so it’s just another reporting requirement that the ATO are asking the affected industries to provide and then they do their data matching,” said Mr Greco.

“In the first year of operation of that report, I think it was over $2 billion of additional tax received so it was quite successful in bringing people back into the fold and they are hoping something similar in experience in relation to these other sectors.”

The ATO has released draft guidance, including working examples of whether a client needs to report, what payments need to be reported, and what doesn’t need to be reported.