CANBERRA: Commissioner of Taxation Chris Jordan has condemned as “without foundation” a report that tax return lodgement and processing for FY17 could be delayed due to the Australian Taxation Office’s recent IT outages. Fairfax Media this morning reported that the ATO “cannot guarantee it will begin tax time 2017 on July 1”. “We are absolutely confident that taxpayers will be able to lodge their returns and receive refunds on time from 1 July,” Jordan said in a statement.
“It is disappointing that some people are trying to create unnecessary mischief during what has already been a challenging and testing time for the community and the ATO. This is very unfortunate as it undermines the commitment and good work that our people have undertaken to return ATO services to normal operation and bring them back online as quickly and reliably as possible.” The ATO late last week suffered an unplanned outage of its core online services. It wasn’t until Monday that the agency could confirm that most services had been restored.
