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Applications peaked in November, ATO says, and 50,000 preferred paper form.
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Extended ID deadline looms for 600k directors
08 December 2022
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A rush of director ID applications in the run-up to the original deadline has reduced the number outstanding but around 600,000 remain outside the system with one week to go.
The ATO said 1.9 million ID numbers had been issued to December 5 – from an estimated director population of 2.5 million – with applications peaking on 29 November, one day before the original deadline, when 80,000 were processed.
The overwhelming majority applied online but the ATO said almost 50,000 director IDs – 2.5 per cent of the total – had involved paper applications.
Accountants Daily understands that the ATO had begun mailing out paper forms to directors as a prompt to apply, and on the tax office’s own figures around 5,000 paper applications have been processed over the past two weeks.
The ATO said paper applications could take “quite some time to process” but once an application had been submitted a director had fulfilled their obligations.
With an estimated 35,000 directors overseas, most of the shortfall involves Australian-based directors who have yet to engage with the process and standouts may eventually face substantial penalties.
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With a last-minute extension of the deadline to December 14, the ATO said now was a good time to complete the process with wait times on support phone lines “significantly” lower and the average down to six minutes.
“This is a great time for directors to set aside some time to apply and get the support they need,” the ATO said.
“We encourage directors not to wait but to apply now, so they can avoid a last-minute rush and have their application done and dusted well ahead of 14 December.”
However, the ATO waited until the last minute to clear up confusion over who needed to get an ID, with a mid-November legislative tweak excluding those who were directors prior to 31 October 2021 but who had resigned before the original November 30 deadline.
The change was seen as a response to critics who had suggested the ID scheme had cast its net too wide, taking in directors who were no longer acting as a company officer and had no intention of doing so in future.
The ATO clarified that a director ID first required a myGovID, which involved the applicant verifying their identity with government-verified documents, and acknowledged that problems could arise if someone had changed their name or had differing names across identity documents.
The director ID number scheme is administered by the ABRS, which is managed by the ATO and is part of the modernising business registers program.
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