CANBERRA: Tax agent-prepared returns will receive fresh attention from the Australian Taxation Office this year as it expands its technology to spot dodgy deductions. The move coincides with a new warning from the ATO for people to avoid incorrect claims for work-related expenses. Last year the Australian Taxation Office introduced real-time monitoring of about 3.2 million online tax returns, with messages about questionable claims being sent to individuals as they prepared their returns. More than 100,000 people received messages and many changed their deductions.
ATO assistant commissioner Kath Anderson says the tax technology compares people with their peers. This year its warning system will be expanded to tax agents who lodge more than nine million returns annually, informing them if clients have previously made unusual claims. Assistant commissioner Kath Anderson said the real-time monitoring would identify higher-than-expected claims related to motor vehicles, travel, phone, internet and self-education. “It’s not designed to catch people out. It’s designed on the basis that we think most people will do the right thing,” she said. “It compares people to their peers — people in similar occupations earning similar amounts of money. It’s quite sophisticated.” Ms Anderson said the technology would also notice types of income that was declared in previous years and not declared this year. “We think that’s especially important for people who are lodging early, because they tend to miss some income,” she said. “Many taxpayers don’t have a good understanding of what deductions they can claim, and believe they can claim for items which they in fact can’t.
