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The Tax Office defends the revised system after a chorus of complaints from agents and bookkeepers.
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Staff ready to help with client linking issues: ATO
05 February 2024
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The ATO has defended its revised client linking regime against a barrage of complaints from the tax profession by saying its phone staff are ready to help when anyone has “difficulties”.
It said staff were up-to-date on the process, its online guidance was continually under review and the system had been successfully navigated by 70,000 taxpayers since it became mandatory in November.
However, it urged tax agents to help businesses keep their ABR information current because out-of-date data could throw up problems with its Relationship Authorisation Manager, which was critical to the linking process.
“We are aware that businesses that have not kept their information up to date on the ABR can experience issues with the RAM linking process needed to support accessing online services for business,” the ATO said.
“Agents can help their existing clients to keep their ABR information up to date as it is a requirement to update this within 28 days of any changes.”
“We continue to review and improve our guidance material and ensure our staff are able to support agents and clients over the phone where they are having difficulties.”
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Frustration with the revised system re-emerged on social media last week and soon reached a disgruntled crescendo involving bookkeepers, tax agents and even professional bodies.
Accusations included that the system was cumbersome, flawed, and time-consuming, and attempts to resolve issues led to long phone delays or involved “ATO officers unfamiliar with the process”.
The executive director of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, Matthew Addison, said the ATO risked a taxpayer boycott because businesses were giving up.
“Business owners are saying it is just too hard, so I won’t lodge my taxes; no more BAS, no more payroll lodgements, no more tax payments until the ATO allows the agent to be connected,” he said.
He accused the ATO of being blind to the despair of small business, especially those lacking tech literacy.
“We don’t believe the ATO are seeing the larger number of disgruntled taxpayers and now agents,” he said.
“Our community of bookkeepers and accountants deal with many who are not so connected and who are definitely not computerised. We deal with the clients who do not want to deal with the ATO themselves.”
The ATO launched the revised system for big business almost two years ago. In the wake of that, changes were made to improve the system before it was extended to all ABN holders – except sole traders – last November.
“The client-to-agent linking change was piloted with over 191,000 businesses from June 2022 and enhancements were made to the process as a result of listening to the feedback from that pilot,” the ATO said.
“We collaborated with our stewardship groups and tax associations to review and update our webpage guidance material for both agents and clients.”
Critics have said that the system, which puts the onus on a client to initiate the connection with a tax agent, upturns the previous system and many clients either lacked the technical know-how to complete the process or expected their tax professional to sort it out.
Another complaint revolved around a quirk of the system that meant an accountant could inadvertently disconnect a BAS agent, who then had to persuade the client to go through the process to reinstate them.
The ATO said the client linking system was part of a suite of protections being implemented to secure personal information amid an “unprecedented rise in identity-related fraud” and identity theft.
“It provides confidence that a verified client has authorised a registered agent to access their tax information,” it said.
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