The ATO isn’t playing nice anymore. Okay, so I admit I haven’t been sending in their infuriatingly frequent monthly forms on time.
(When the government introduced GST, they trumpeted it would be a simpler tax system. What they meant was simpler for them. Not so simple if you’re one of the Cursed who now has to fill in a form every month.)
So far I’ve got away with the late forms, the only result being a terse note along the lines of “This time we’ve decided not to fine your arse. This time.”
But now they have cracked it and… well, fined my arse. $220 no less. $110 per 28 day period (or part thereof).
This month’s damn form is going in a week early.
9 replies on “No more Mr Nice Guy”
OUCH!!
*wince* They smack it where it hurts, don’t they?
Sorry Daniel, bit of a threadjack, but the BBC has just ordered a third series of Doctor Who!
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1507679,00.html
Sorry, I should have warned everybody that the link I posted above does contain serious spoilers for the last episode, remove it if you feel it appropriate Daniel.
The ATO. Grrrrrrrrr. They sent letters to an old PO Box last year, 3 of them all would have been sent back. They didn’t call me (my phone number hasn’t changed) to see what was going on, just decided to lump me with a general interest charge instead. I thought my accountant had changed my address on my behalf as they had been sending me other correspondence from the ATO. Grrrrrrrrrrr again.
Monthly forms? Ouch. I thought yearly was bad enough.
Andy, it’s ‘cos I have a company that I contract through. Thankfully normal everyday citizens don’t have to put up with such pen pushing. But until a couple of years ago, the forms were quarterly.
Thanks for the warning Pete… I won’t read it yet!
Hi Daniel. I am just curious as to how long this form takes to fill in? We hear from small business that they are snowed under with government red tape.
There’s a quick form (IAS) 2 out of every 3 months, which takes less than half an hour to do manually (would be quicker if all your accounting was done in a package like MYOB or Quicken, but I’ve never taken the time to organise it). There’s a more complex form every 3 months (the dreaded BAS) which takes at several times as long.
I suppose the amount of time taken isn’t huge, but it is a hassle to find all the relevant data every month.