Self Employed Australia

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Taxation

Morrison’s dead flat small business pitch

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election-2022-pitchLast week Morrison made his pitch for the small business vote. It fell dead flat. That’s strange really.

It’s almost an Australian political truism that political parties cannot win government in Australia without a sizable chunk of the small business vote. So, for Morrison, who’s supposed to be ‘Scotty from marketing,’ his seeming blindness to this alleged truism is odd.

Morrison’s pitch was that by lowering overhead costs and energy bills he’d create a vast number of new small businesses. This pitch is not specific and applies generally to any business (or family) in the economy. There’s no ‘joining of the dots’ between the pitch and the lives of the self-employed, small and family businesses.

Again, it’s strange that Morrison has totally missed his small business target. The Coalition in fact has a substantial history of not only spouting the small business mantra, but of having substance to support the mantra as well. Take some examples.

John Howard created the Independent Contractors Act to protect the status of the self-employed. Tony Abbott committed to the introduction of a Federal Small and Family Business Ombudsman and put the wheels in motion for unfair contract laws for small business.  The Abbott-era commitments were finalised and delivered under the Turnbull coalition government.

Self-employed, small business people profile strongly on the measure of informed and swinging voters. They are extensive seekers of information. This again is why Morrison’s dead flat small business pitch seems so strange at this election.

At the 2019 election Morrison promised to introduce security of payment laws for small business. He’s done this. And it’s good. It’s strange that he’s not pitching it.

He also promised to ‘beef up’ unfair contract protections for small business people. The Bill was ready to go. But strangely this major pro-small business Bill was deserted immediately before the election was called. Did the ‘big end of town’ get to Morrison to pull the Bill?

Then there is the elephant in the room. The Australian Taxation Office has been crucifying small business. The ATO has destroyed small businesses in the research and development space—claiming dodgy use of grants—but the ATO subsequently admitted that it was wrong.

The ATO has been attacking small and family business trusts, forcing trust beneficiaries to pay tax when (even the ATO admits) the beneficiaries have not received any income. The ATO has also sought to change trust distribution rules retrospectively, thereby creating tax debts in the past where, under then-existing ATO rules, no tax debt existed.

In the 2021 Budget the Morrison government declared in Parliament that “We are backing small business in over the ATO. No longer will the ATO be able to garnishee and takeaway (alleged tax debt) while the dispute is in train”. But this promise turned out to be false. The implemented policy only enables small business people to ‘apply’ to have a disputed debt ‘paused’ until appeals have been heard.

Morrison’s pitch to create large numbers of small businesses falls dead flat if those new (and existing) small businesses find themselves under unfair attack from the ATO without the protections afforded by a rule of law regime.

To win and retain the small business vote the Coalition has historically made a policy of substance that it then delivers when in government.  This time Morrison is not selling what he’s done and not promising anything new for small business.

It’s almost as if Morrison has abandoned the small business vote. How odd!

Closing the construction watchdog will harm self-employed tradies

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Unfair contract laws

In March we praised the Morrison government for moving to ‘beef up’ the unfair contract laws for small business people. Albanese’s Labor also supports this, which is great. Unfortunately, the Bill did not pass through Parliament before the election was called.

Integrity Commission – ATO

Labor has made a big noise about Morrison failing to establish a Federal Integrity (anti-corruption) Commission. Here’s our assessment of the issues and politics of this. Morrison has a model, but Labor wants one based on the NSW Commission. The NSW Commission is, however, accused of being a kangaroo court that the High Court found breached the law. The Morrison model would, for the first time, make the ATO accountable to an external body. That’s a policy we strongly support.

Industrial relations

Last week Morrison announced he would move on some industrial relations reform. Labor attacked and Morrison quickly reversed his stance. Here’s our assessment of the politics around this issue. Essentially, we say that the ‘big end of town’ wants changes to suit themselves. But we reckon that the ‘big end of towners’ are incompetent in managing their workplace relations.

Construction Industry Watchdog

If there’s one Labor commitment that stands out, it’s that an Albanese Labor government will close down the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).  We see this as highly negative for self-employed people in the construction sector. We strongly oppose this Labor policy.

Here’s our longer assessment, but in summary:

  • The ABCC has brought some discipline to the mafia-like behaviour of construction unions. Over the last two years the ABCC has had the courts impose fines totalling some $5.7 million for illegal (thuggish) behaviour.
  • What’s extremely important is that the ABCC operates a Security of Payments system in the construction sector. It’s a vital service. All construction firms within the ABCC’s jurisdiction are required to pay their subcontractors within payment terms. If they are late, they must report this to the ABCC. Subcontractors can lodge complaints with the ABCC over late payment.
    If contractors do not pay on time, they risk sanctions that ultimately include being banned from all Commonwealth-funded work. Over around the last 5 years the ABCC has recovered some $10.7 million in outstanding payments owed to subcontractors. Some major contractors have been disciplined.
    An external review of the ABCC reports a “reduction in the number of delayed payments” and “greater efforts being made to pay subcontractors on time.” This is critically important.

There’s no doubt that should Anthony Albanese’s Labor win the election, one of its highest priorities will be the elimination of the ABCC. The outcome would be renewed, unrestrained thuggery on construction sites. Further, small business tradie subcontractors would again carry the risk of not being paid. A bad outcome for all except for the thugs.

(Disclosure: Ken Phillips is a member of the ABCC Security of Payments Working Group along with representatives from the ACTU and Building Industry Associations.)

We’ll produce more election assessments on issues for self-employed people over the coming weeks.

ATO ramps up its aggressive campaign against small and family businesses

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aggressive-campaignIt’s not extreme to say that the Australian Taxation Office is conducting a brazen financial bombing campaign against small and family businesses across Australia.

Last week we informed you about the ATO’s taking a position where, at law and in its administration, it can (and is) creating and imposing tax debts where the taxpayer has not received any income. It’s gobsmacking but the High Court has said that this is ‘legal’ even though it also remarked that it’s clearly unfair. This is happening with family businesses using trusts—but watch the ATO expand this agenda.

Now we have more news of the ATO’s small business destruction campaign. In February the ATO released draft rulings that would declare family trust payments to adults to be illegal. What? This throws out decades of accepted, legal, small/family business income distributions. It would be like declaring that dividends from public companies (eg Telstra, BHP, CBA) were illegal. But more! Such declarations were to be backdated to 2015. So distributions that were legal over the last eight years could now be declared illegal. This is small/family business-hating, ATO madness.

Then last week, just before the election was called, the government and the ATO issued a ‘sort of‘ backdown. Well, not really. The statement says they’ll still deny distributions but will not apply them retrospectively. In other words, the attack continues but not as bad ‘sort of’!

There’s more for us to report on this intensifying ATO small/family business tax ‘bombing’ campaign. More pressing at the moment, however, is the need for solutions to fix this destructive ATO behaviour.

Jason Falinski MP has been the greatest friend of small business in the Australian Parliament over the last few years. He’s been doing real stuff. Not simply talking.

Jason chairs the parliamentary committee that keeps watch on the ATO. He’s guided and pushed the review that’s come up with some common-sense, balanced ATO reform recommendations. At the heart of these is a legislated ‘Taxpayer Rights’ Act. We reported on this in October last year.

Taxpayer Rights would:

  • Ensure that the ATO could not collect a debt until all appeals have been finalised.
  • Reverse the onus of proof of fraud or evasion so that it lies with the ATO.
  • Establish the office of Taxpayer Advocate to ensure that the ATO complied with the Taxpayer Rights Act.

The ‘Falinski’ Report is a huge step forward for Australian small and family businesses in particular.

As we’re now in the full-blown election campaign period, we need to know from both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese where they stand on Taxpayer Rights. Frankly, it’s the critical issue for Australian small and family businesses.

If Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese both remain silent on this issue, it really means that they both endorse the current anti-small business behaviour of the ATO.

Government gets massive tax windfall from Australians who have received no income. Bastards!

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ATO-punchHow would you like to be forced to pay tax when you have received no income? That’s what’s happening to a taxpayer following a High Court ruling this week. And it’s happened because the Australian Taxation Office has the legal power to act like a ‘Mongrel Bunch of Bastards’—something it’s rather good at.

The case involves a legal interpretation of an obscure 1936 tax law affecting trusts. You might think that trusts are only used by wealthy people. But no! There are 900,000 trusts in Australia, used mostly by small/medium-sized family businesses.

In this particular case, the ATO ‘formed an opinion’ that a medium-sized family business made a (theoretical) profit in 2014. It’s a ‘theoretical’ profit because the ATO decided to ignore the business’s expenses in its assessment. That’s exhibit number 1 of ATO bastardry.

Because the business didn’t make any profit, the father who ran the business didn’t distribute any money to his daughter who was a ‘beneficiary’ of the business’s trust. Sounds sensible!  And the ATO accepts that no money went to the daughter. But the ATO decided that it would test the 1936 law in the High Court. (Bastardry exhibit number 2.)

On the strict wording of this obscure tax clause the High Court has ruled that, with trusts, tax must be paid even if no ‘profit’ is distributed. It’s a blatantly unfair situation.

But there’s a further stinger not covered in this High Court decision. That is, that under the general powers of the ATO, the ATO only has to ‘form an opinion’ of a profit having been made for it to become a legal ‘profit’ and hence creating a tax debt. And the debt must be paid immediately. Unfair! Unfair! Unfair!

The High Court’s job, however, is not to decide public (tax) policy but to rule on the meaning of the law. But in this case the Court nonetheless recognized the unfairness, saying that:

“That unfairness arises because Div6, and s97(1) in particular, is drafted to tax a beneficiary by reference to present entitlement, not receipt.”

Here’s the High Court’s ruling—see paragraph 26 (we’ve highlighted it.)

The ramifications of this ATO behaviour are massive. 900,000 people/businesses with trusts will now never know if the ATO will ‘form an opinion’ that they have made a profit and create from thin air a tax debt that it can enforce.

But how many other obscure tax clauses exist that the ATO might use to impose a tax debt where no income has been received?  We are all at risk from this ‘bastard’ ATO.

So who’s to blame for this mess? Doyen business commentator Robert Gottliebsen has said of this case in The Australian that, “Many tell me that the tax commissioner is ‘out of control’. I think the truth is different—the commissioner is ‘not in control’”.

Frankly, this is a terrible way to run a country. For more than a decade we (Self-Employed Australia) have been exposing ATO bastardry and calling for a fix. In early 2020 we offered a specific and detailed fix based on the rules the United States uses to control its tax authority (the IRS). What has the Morrison government done in response? Nothing that has made any difference. They have merely fiddled, while seemingly pretending to do something.

This recent act of ATO bastardry takes the unfairness of this fouled-up tax administration system to a new low. It could have been stopped with a decent government having rules to control the ATO (like the USA) instead of the ATO ruling over the government.

We’ll have more to say on this!

Tax bureaucrats try to sneak one through

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robertWho runs Australia? Is it the politically accountable politicians elected through the democratic process? Or is it the unidentified, unelected, bureaucrats who hide behind closed doors?

A situation happening now indicates that at least some Commonwealth bureaucrats think they run the country and democracy can go jump!

In the April budget last year, the Morrison government announced that the Tax Office would no longer be able to collect a small business tax debt while in dispute and under appeal. That’s a damn good policy move for tax fairness.

robertThe Small Business Minister stated in Parliament:

“We are backing small business in over the ATO. No longer will the ATO be able to garnishee and takeaway while the dispute is in train …”

A recording of the Ministers statement in Parliament can be viewed here  (23 sec)

A key job of the Commonwealth Treasury department is to draft legislation that puts government policy into effect. Last week, nine months after this very clear policy statement, Treasury released draft legislation that does the opposite of what the government promised. (See here and here.)

The draft legislation would not automatically stop the ATO collecting on a disputed debt. It would force a taxpayer to apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (a very expensive process) for a pause. And a taxpayer would have to prove that their application did not “restrict …administration of tax law…” In our view this is a sneaky bureaucratic way of killing off the Morrison government’s attempt at small business tax fairness.

Yesterday we lodged a submission condemning the draft law and calling for it to be put in the trash bin. Here’s our submission (3 pages).

Robert Gottliebsen in The Australian took the same view with the headline ‘Tax bureaucrats try to sneak one through.’

Why ‘sneaky’? The draft legislation was released for ‘consultation’ on 12 January, smack bang when most people are on holidays, and during the height of the Djokovic mess and while the government was/is handling supply chain and other Covid ‘crisis’ issues. And Treasury has given only seven days for responses. The draft legislation is short and tax bureaucrats have had nine months where they could have done something. Looks sneaky? Probably is sneaky!

We’ve said in our submission:

The job of Treasury is to faithfully draft legislation that accurately reflects the government’s policy intent … we submit that this draft legislation undermines the government’s policy intent and the process of democracy in Australia.

We’ve made it clear what the legislation should look like.

Normally we admire the professional integrity of the Australian public service and their respect for the democratic process. This situation is a dark smudge on that professional integrity.

An ‘agitated’ Tax Commissioner – Roast or burn taxpayers?

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jordan-agitatedJust recently we covered on an important Parliamentary Committee Report calling for legislation to create Taxpayer Rights. The Parliamentary Report says that taxpayers need protections from an ATO that may abuse its powers. The recommendations are common sense that we strongly support.

Under Australian legislation all taxing powers belong to the Tax Commissioner. This legislation effectively means the Commissioner has the power of a ‘tax dictator’.

Senate Hearing – ‘burn them’

About a week ago the Tax Commissioner attended a regular Senate Estimates hearing. This is where Senators ask questions of the bureaucrats.

Senator Eric Abetz (Tasmania) asked the Commissioner if he remembered the Four Corners program ‘Mongrel Bunch of Bastards’ that covered ATO abuse of taxpayers.  And if the Commissioner remembered saying that the accusation in the program that the ATO ‘slowly boiled people until they are roasted to death’ was ‘ludicrous and absurd’. The Commissioner said he remembered.

Senator Abetz then produced a transcript record of senior ATO legal officers discussing a strategy against taxpayers to ‘burn them.’ The Commissioner replied, “I’m astounded that you are raising this.” Senator Abetz tried to speak but the Commissioner cut the Senator off with “No listen to me…”  Senator Abetz commented that he was surprised by the Commissioner’s  agitated response’. See the Abetz-Commission video record (10-min YouTube) here.

Senate Hearing – No to ADR – ATO whim

Later in the same hearing, Senator Ben Small (Western Australia) had questions. The Senator asked if there were times when the Commissioner would not enter Alternative Dispute Resolution with taxpayers. (ADR is being hailed by the ATO as a great way to avoid disputes.) The Commissioner responded with a bit of a rambling reply that included “If you (ATO) have entrenched avoiders, ADR wont help.”

That was part of the Commissioner’s reply to the Senator’s question which asked,  “Where a taxpayer in that particular circumstance approached the ATO with a view to engaging in good faith ADR to de-escalate for the parties, are you saying that would not be appropriate?”  See the Small-Commissioner video record (11-min YouTube) here.

So, it seems that the ATO’s much hailed Alternative Dispute Resolution is only available if the ATO likes you. That is, ADR is NOT a right for taxpayers but something entirely at the ATO’s whim. Sounds like a tax dictatorship to me!

ATO ‘bad eggs’

I liked Senator Abetz’s comment to the Commissioner comparing tax officers’ behaviour to those of the police. The Senator said:

“But every now and then we do get a bad egg, and we cannot overcome the bad egg by referring to the 99 per cent of good people in the police force and similarly with the ATO. The concern I have, Commissioner, is that your response … suggests that you are not willing to accept that there might be an issue where you do need to deal with this sort of a culture or behaviour by certain individuals.”

I’d agree with Senator Abetz. We should be concerned. Are taxpayer rights only there at the whim of the ATO dictatorship? That’s neither just nor fair.

Parliament must lead

The parliamentary report calling for a Taxpayer Rights Bill seems to recommend leaving it to the ATO to ‘develop’ those rights. After witnessing the Senate Estimates performance above, every taxpayer should be highly concerned. Taxpayer Rights have to be created by the Parliament. That’s what Parliaments must do. Parliaments are there to protect the people from dictatorships.

It seems we have a lot of work to do for Taxpayer Rights.

It’s worth watching the Tax Commissioner in the Senate:

Here’s the Hansard record

  Abetz-Commissioner video (10 min)

 

 

  Small-Commissioner video (11 min)

One giant step for taxpayers – ‘Taxpayer Rights’

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taxation-rightsThe key Parliamentary Committee overseeing the Australian Taxation Office this week released a report calling for major reforms to the way the ATO treats taxpayers. At the core of the report is the recommendation for Taxpayer Rights.

What does this mean?

If you’ve followed our ATO reform campaign, you’ll likely be aware that we’ve studied the US laws covering its tax office, the IRS. The US legislation stipulates specific “do’s and don’ts” with which the IRS must comply to treat taxpayers fairly. And there’s a watchdog, the Taxpayer Advocate, with real powers. We presented our full report on this to the Parliamentary Committee in mid-2020. Here’s a summary.

We’re very pleased to see that the Committee Report calls for substantial reforms to ATO administration with significant elements drawn from the US laws. The Committee looked at the US closely, including interviewing the retired US Taxpayer Advocate.

The Committee has 19 recommendations all of which strongly we endorse. The key highlights include that the ATO:

  • would not be able to collect a debt until all appeals (tribunal/court) have been decided. In fact, the Morrison government has already committed to this. Watch Small Business Minister Stuart Roberts in Parliament 13 April this year.
  • bear the onus of proof of allegations of fraud or evasion. The Committee notes that this has been recommended in past years but never implemented.
  • cannot charge an interest rate on debts that’s greater than the interest rate the government pays.

What would probably stagger most Australians is that such ‘reforms’ are needed. It demonstrates just how dictatorial are the current powers of the ATO.

But there’s more. The Committee’s recommendations also include:

The Committee Report is a major step forward for a better, more efficient and fairer tax collections system. It’s important to note that when Jason Falinski MP (Liberal) presented the report to Parliament, the Deputy Chair Julie Owens MP (Labor) also endorsed the report. That is, the recommendations have support across the (normal) political divide. This is the Australian Parliament working at its best.

In presenting the report to Parliament, the chair of the committee Jason Falinski MP first praised the ATO for improvements it has made to date. He particularly praised the ATO’s work to implement JobKeeper. We agree. That praise is well deserved. But Falinski went on to say that improvements must continue.

The ATO does a great job for Australia. But the evidence is overwhelming that, in the debt assessment and enforcement area, major abuse of taxpayers is endemic. The ABC covered this (again) just last week. See TV coverage and online articles.

Often big government organisations that have dictatorial powers are blind to the community and to the individual harm they do in the abuse of those powers. And they don’t view their abuse as abuse. They see the abuse as them doing their job!

These reforms recommended by the Tax and Revenue Committee are massively important. We hope the Morrison government will move to implementation. But also we would hope that the ATO would see the reforms as positive for them as an organisation as well as the community. We hope!

Again, here’s the Parliamentary Committee report.

ABC confronts ATO – Time for a Taxpayer Bill of Rights!

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bill-of-rightsYesterday the ABC launched major coverage of a campaign to achieve a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. The coverage included TV, radio and online all day.

Here’s the major online article.  And here’s part of the TV coverage (3’ 42”).

It seems to have generated some serious movement.

The article quotes Federal Liberal MP, Jason Falinski saying, “Australians need to be protected against what has become a very powerful tax office”.  Jason’s comments are especially important because he chairs the key parliamentary committee that oversees the ATO.

Jason also says that the ATO should have to prove a tax debt against someone. Currently the ATO doesn’t have to prove a debt. The burden of proof is on the taxpayer. Jason says “I think that there are a lot of people in government that want to have a very close look at this”. Wow! That’s big. The government is seriously looking at the ATO’s behaviour and powers.

This is supported by the Inspector-General of Taxation, Karen Payne. We talked about her last week exposing really bad ATO behaviour.  In the ABC article Karen suggests that the ATO could face sanctions for breaching taxpayer rights. The article says that Karen’s “…point is that having sanctions would force a cultural shift within the ATO”. We say ‘Yes’ to that!

The need to fix the ATO’s power imbalance is based on strong evidence.

The article features one of the ATO victims who appeared in the 2018 ‘Mongrel Bunch of Bastards’ 4Corners TV exposé. Helen Petaia once had a thriving IT company. But the ATO moved against her on a ‘fabricated tax debt’. The ATO eventually admitted that it was wrong and after six years of fighting Helen was paid compensation by the ATO. But by then her business had collapsed and she was forced to sell the family home. Helen says a Taxpayer Bill of Rights would have saved her from the ATO fight.

The model is based on the US Taxpayer Bill of Rights. It’s legislation. It’s not just simply the tax collector’s policy or ‘code’ that it can ignore at whim.

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights has 10 practical requirements. The right of taxpayers:

  1. To be informed
  2. To quality service
  3. To pay the correct amount of tax
  4. To challenge the tax collector’s position and be heard
  5. To appeal a tax decision in an independent forum
  6. To finality
  7. To privacy
  8. To confidentiality
  9. To retain representation
  10. To a fair and just tax system

This seems damn sensible to us. Here’s a copy of the US Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

And, yes, this is something we’ve been campaigning on since 2019. See here. We’d be very supportive of such a reform. Ummm! More campaigning then!

Hard evidence of ‘bad’ ATO grows – It’s official!

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monsterGoodness, we’ve been campaigning since around 2010 about the bad behaviour of the Australian Taxation Office. It’s one thing for us, a small business advocacy association, to expose systemic ATO misbehaviour. It’s entirely different when an important government agency does the same!

The Inspector-General of Taxation (IGT) is the taxpayers’ friend. It is an ATO watchdog. During the last few months it has released several significant investigations and reports into the ATO. It’s a nasty ATO picture that the IGT paints.

Now mind you, the IGT is much more polite and bureaucratic in the way it exposes the ATO than we are! Yes, our commentary tends to be ‘robust.’ But here are some of the things the IGT has revealed (we’re using our ‘robust’ language).

The ATO can crush your credit rating: The ATO has new powers to report you to credit rating agencies if it claims that you owe the ATO money. Remember, the ATO does not have to prove that you owe money. It only needs to say that you do. This clearly opens up the opportunity for ATO abuse. It’s paradise for ATO bullying! The IGT seems to be concerned.  The IGT has put a warning banner across the top of its website with a link to help available from the IGT.  It’s almost as if the IGT is warning taxpayers about a potential scam. (Although the IGT does not say this!)

ATO – You owe us money – We don’t have to tell you why!

The IGT has done a detailed study into whether the ATO must give you reasons for any decisions it makes. That is, the ATO explaining why it says you owe money. Incredibly, the report finds that the ATO does not have to give you reasons. There’s all sorts of law that pretends to require the ATO to give reasons. But these laws are so weak that they effectively mean nothing. And far too routinely the ATO does not give reasons.

As a taxpayer you are rubbish. You have no rights

The latest IGTO report released just days ago looks at what ‘rights’ taxpayers do have. Effectively the answer is none!

For example, the ATO has a Taxpayers’ Charter of Rights. But this is ignored by the ATO. Few ATO staff are trained about the Charter. Taxpayers are mostly not told of their ‘rights’ to internal appeal, or referral to the Small Business Tax Tribunal or to the IGT.  The Charter talks of ‘fairness’ and other motherhood statements. But in essence the Charter is a public relations cover for what the ATO really does. The Charter is not law but ATO internal policy. It’s rubbish (that’s our term!)

The IGT’s series of reports are important. The reports forensically lay out the actual behaviour of the ATO. What’s highlighted, to us, is that actual law or statute that might require the ATO to operate in a fair and reasonable way is simply non-existent. This surely must not continue.

Reform is possible. We’ve laid out a template for ATO administrative reform that would bring fairness and balance. It’s modelled on US laws covering the IRS.

 

ATO abuse has to be stopped. This can only be done through legislation.

How the ATO ‘manages’ parliament – ATO techniques as ‘lawmaker’

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In 2018, high-profile tax lawyer Mark Leibler stated that the ATO effectively makes tax law. He said:

“…for all intents and practical purposes, it’s effectively the (Tax) Commissioner who lays down the law.” “…Commissioner effectively continues to act as lawmaker…”

The accuracy of this statement can be seen, in part, in the way the ATO ‘manages’ its appearances before Parliamentary Committees.

Our observation is that the ATO is polite, professional but provides answers only in general ways, avoids specifics and always emphasises how ‘nice, reasonable, and sensible’ it is. It uses the ‘you can trust us’ approach. By using this approach the ATO deflects attention away from facts that show them to be unreasonable, unfair, aggressive, breaching rules and intent on being an arbitrary tax ‘lawmaker’. In our view the ATO usurps the parliamentary process of democracy in this manner.

We’ve monitored some of the recent Senate quizzing of the ATO (2 and 3 June). Here are some YouTube clips you might find interesting. We think these clips give an insight into the ATO, but we’ll let you decide what you think of the ATO’s parliamentary management techniques.

In our view the Australian Parliament needs stronger oversight of the ATO’s tax management processes. Legislation is needed to achieve this.