POPULAR WORDS

Businesses who lodge their annual GST return and information reports through a tax agent may be eligible for an extension up to May 15, rather than lodging by February 28. Taxation Office Assistant Commissioner David Diment recently wrote to tax practitioners informing them of the extension plans. Deadlines for tax agents have now been moved from the fixed date of February 28 2002, until the date when each taxpayer's income tax return is due under the agent's lodgment program. This date varies from taxpayer to taxpayer, but could be as late as May 15, 2002. Some taxpayers, including those exempt from income tax, will still need to lodge their annual GST information by February 28. Taxation Institute of Australia (TIA) president Alice McCleary strongly recommends people confirm their lodgment dates with their tax agents. She welcomes the extension and congratulates the Tax Commissioner for finally taking a reasonable approach to such deadlines. "Why has it taken the Commissioner so long to offer this reasonable lodgment date extension when the clear inappropriateness of the original 28 February date was raised with the ATO over 18 months ago," McCleary asks. "The ATO needs to be more realistic when setting deadlines in the first place. "The original ATO lodgment deadlines were neither realistic or feasible, and advice to this effect by the Institute, among others, was completely ignored. "The original deadline effectively doubled compliance costs because 2001 tax information would have had to be dealt with twice - once in February for the GST Annual returns and again a few months later for the income tax return. "With taxpayers' concerns on basic administrative matters being regularly ignored, perhaps this indicates a useful long-term role for the Inspector-General of Taxation - finding workable solutions to difficult systematic administrative issues within the tax system and ensuring that they are dealt with efficiently and commercially in the future." A meeting is being held this week to progress the establishment of the Inspector-General position.