Hello, my name is Gillian Bowen, the Australian Manager of Public Affairs at Chartered Accountants ANZ or CA ANZ. This is Small Firm, Big Impact.
We're hearing lots of feedback from our members about the ATO being slow to get back to them and to respond to client needs. We're also hearing from members that they're feeling a lot of tax administration is being pushed onto them by the ATO. They're finding it difficult to deal with PayG instalments. They're finding that communication from the ATO is excessive and is not well targeted. Unless we start lodging complaints about slow processes with the ATO, the issue remains below the surface.
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up to date information you need to do your jobs. Each episode, I share resources, tools, and expert advice provided by CA ANZ and a range of people across our profession. So make sure you're following the pod in your favourite pod app. And if you've got an idea for the show, email podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Today we have Senior Tax Advocate Susan Franks, the topic recent member experiences with the Australian Tax Office and
its services and what CA ANZ is doing to help. Susan Franks, welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oh hi Gill. It's great to be here.
So in the last week or so, one of our members posed a few questions to us to ask about what CA ANZ is doing to advocate on behalf of members regarding the ATO's recent performance when it comes to service standards. So our members obviously have a lot of interaction with the ATO. Now I'll read part of Ashley Carmichael's post. He says I had the displeasure of following up a matter today that remains unresolved after six months. This, sadly,
is not a unique case. He goes on. The ATO complaints department advise that their service standard for resolving complaints is now blown out to 30 business days, and that they are receiving 1100 complaints a week. He asks about Under-resourcing in their processing areas. He asks what action is happening to address this issue. Mr. Carmichael believes it's costing CA ANZ members significant resources in wasted time spent following up
unresolved matters and submitting complaints on behalf of clients. And there are some important points raised here, and I thought it was an opportunity to discuss what CA ANZ has been doing on this matter and other issues that are impacting our members right now. So that's why I've got Susan involved. Let's get started and pick some of this apart. What else do you think? Or what else do you know about the issue that Ashley Carmichael is talking about here?
Look, what Ashley is talking about is a very, very common complaint. We're hearing lots of feedback from our members about the ATO being slow to get back to them and to respond to client needs. What we're hearing is the 28 day service standard. Our members are expecting an issue to be resolved in 28 days, and what the ATO doing is not touching an issue until 28 days, then asking a further question. So the 28 day starts again and the matter just goes on and on and on.
We're also hearing from members that they're feeling a lot of tax administration is being pushed onto them by the ATO. They're finding it difficult to deal with instalments. They're finding that communication from the ATO is excessive and is not well targeted.
So why is the ATO doing that touch point that you were talking about in regards to waiting until the end of the 28 days, and then it kind of seems to roll on or reset. Why are they doing that?
With this issue has been raised by chartered accountants and other industry bodies at the Tax Practitioner Stewardship Group numerous times. It's been an ongoing issue for a number of years when the issue has been raised at the Tax Practitioner Stewardship Group meeting, the ATO points out that accountants are not the only people trying to recruit staff so that they can service taxpayers well. The ATO is also experiencing that issue as well.
So it looks as though then the issue isn't going to be solved quickly. It's hard to recruit people, as we would know then. So what is it that is going to be the next steps here? Then? What is it that our members can do to try and alleviate the stress on their end?
Well, we've actually been talking to the ATO about this, and unfortunately, getting greater staff into those areas is not the answer at the moment. And what the ATO is looking at is actually putting more of the services through tax agents, online services. So they're trying to put more and more into that product so tax agents can self
service more. When we went and spoke to the Inspector General of Taxation about these issues, she actually suggested that we use the complaint line on the basis that what gets measured gets actioned. And what we've found is members that have had issues about the 28 day service period, when they've lodged a complaint with the complaint line, they've actually had their issues resolved fairly quickly.
Let's then talk more in depth about that complaints process, because it appears to be the way to go to get some more action done quicker. How does it work?
Well, there are several ways that our members can lodge a complaint. If, assuming that most of them are tax agents, what you can do is submit your complaint using the Tax Practitioner Complaints online form through online services for agents. And you do that by going to reports and forms, selecting forms, and then selecting the tax practitioner complaint. You can also phone the ATO using the 1800 199 010 number. Monday
to Friday. Or you could write to the ATO. But it's important when you're actually expressing your concern that you write the outcome that you want and provide details that they can action it.
And can you do this after like is there a time period you have to wait before you're allowed to lodge a complaint?
Well, you. Usually have to wait till at least 28 days so that they can actually have a chance to progress things. And it is preferred that you actually try to resolve it directly with the person you're dealing with as soon as you possibly can. But that can sometimes be difficult because the ATO won't necessarily answer the phone until the
28 day period has finished. And that is particularly problematic if you're trying to negotiate a payment plan with the ATO and get finance for you and your client at the same time.
So there'll be members listening along, who'll be like, this is ridiculous. We're busy. And then the only way to get action is to lodge a complaint. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel, any sort of solution in the in the short term to help with this additional admin that they will then need to start doing.
Why do it? Because what gets measured gets actions. So unless we start lodging complaints about slow processes with the ATO, the issue remains below the surface and and festering. If we need to get the Inspector General of Taxation to look at an issue, she needs data to make decisions and to make recommendations. And we also need data for the ..., for the ATO to be seen to be failing some KPIs. So lodge your complaint. Get that data there so real action can be taken going forward.
Okay. So what resources do we have out there to help with all of this.
Well, we've been working continuously with the raising members issues with them. So every time people write to us to taxteamau@charteredaccountantsanz.com or contacts the member helpline, and we get a Salesforce query coming through. We contact the member and talk to them and put them in touch with the appropriate people to resolve their issues. And quite often when we're getting those type of complaints through from members, there's a systemic issue which we then work with the ATO to
try and resolve. We've also been hearing a lot of complaints about online services for agents, and it's continuously developing
and changing. So what we've got the ATO to agree to is to present a sharing knowledge session twice a year, just on updates in relation to online services for agents, and particularly the deferred lodgement process, to try and help our members understand how the ATO approaches this, these matters, so that they can align their systems more efficiently and effectively within their practices as well.
Have those two sessions for this year already been held or is there something coming up soon?
We've had two sessions this year and they've been very well attended and been very practical. Our members have been very engaged in those sharing knowledge sessions, which is fantastic because what we've been able to do with that data and the questions that our members have asked is de-identify it, group it together and put that back to the ATO saying, look, these are the pain points. These are the issues that our members want to get resolved so they can then
work on it. And then they know that in six months time, they're going to be presenting to these same people and they're going to need to do an update for them. So that's the process we've been doing behind the scenes to try and get the ATO to action. Some of the pain points that our members are going.
Through and have they been actioning them?
We have. We've had members on deferred lodgement working groups. We've had we've got two current members on the vision for tax agents in 2030, and they are taking their comments on board and designing systems around what our members are actually telling the ATO in the discussions about getting lodgement processes better and the vision for 2030.
So what I will do, is I'll get the links to those two recent sharing knowledge sessions and put them in the show notes so
they're easy for people to find. And on that page as well, I'm sure there will be alerts about the upcoming sessions that you'll be able to register for next year, so that you can get all the information that you need there and continue that conversation, that process, that pipeline of information between our members and the ATO, because it sounds like it's very important for getting through some of those issues and sorting out solutions. Look, we're almost out
of time. Is there anything else that CA ANZ is advocating on that would be worth our members knowing about?
It's actually worth our members knowing about that, we often use tax news to give links to upcoming sharing knowledge sessions, which are very relevant and very practical for our members, and also to use. Call us. Call the member service line. Call it. Write to us via taxteamau@charteredaccountantsanz.com so that your concerns can be addressed and you are heard. In relation to what we're actually going to be talking about next year. We're sitting down and talking to the ATO all the time.
So every time that a member writes to us, we're sitting down and discussing that with the ATO. So we've been having monthly meetings with the ATO about debt collection, because there's got $100 billion of tax to collect. They're writing letters to, you know, 20,000 people at a time. So we've got monthly meetings with them to discuss issues
that our members are facing. For example, getting SMS messages within two days of a debt being late, the ability to see pay notices or inability rather to see pay notices. Members getting daily calls about a tax debt. Now with that one, the ATO resolved that fairly quickly and they needed to because it was escalating substantially. But the ATO's also gone back and changed the education of their people about
how they actually document these calls. We've also been talking about the to the ATO, about how they actually write their letters, making sure that they don't have out to date of information, or sending out letters with no date on them, so that there's less work for our clients. And they've now got a working group that just reviews some of the standard letters before they go out. So there is a lot on and there's a lot that we're doing, and there's a lot of avenues that we're
talking to the ATO about. So please keep on writing to us and letting us know what your concerns are so that your views can be represented to the ATO.
Mhm. Mhm. It's a very good point. And on that if you want to find out more I will put a link to all the bits and pieces that Susan has mentioned in the show notes, so that you can easily find them. And they'll also be on the show's podcast
page on the CA ANZ website. I'll put a link to that as well, and I'll include all those contacts that Susan talked about, because that's important for the members to keep up their communication with, and said so that we can then send on that information and advocate on your behalf. Follow the podcast as well. Search Small Firm, Big Impact in your podcast app right now and follow. And the podcast has an email, so feel free to get in touch. podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com.
Let's start a conversation. Thank you to Ashley Carmichael for putting that post on social media and letting us have a discussion about all things ATO and member services. And thank you to Susan Franks, our Senior Tax Advocate, for being our expert on Small Firm, Big Impact.
You're welcome. Thank you for the opportunity, Gill.
Bye bye.