The Tax Office is yet to release its final report on corporate tax compliance by trusts and the provision of tax refunding to them.
The report is likely to contain recommendations for further action.
The latest draft of the report was prepared by a joint working group of the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate General (OTAG), the Office for Taxpayers Protection (OTAP) and the Office, Fiscal Management and Administration (OTAF) of the Commonwealth.
Toss up to 15 recommendations were made by the group.
The report recommends that the Government should: •Ensure that all trusts are fully audited •Enforce the use of audited trusts to recover any tax owing to trusts •Ensure that taxpayers with trusts that are subject to tax reporting requirements are provided with written notice of any tax refund obligation that is due •Enact a comprehensive and transparent review of all trusts and their reporting obligations and to provide information to all tax authorities on how to obtain and use tax refundable funds •Review the role of the OTPG in establishing the tax refundability of trusts and to assess and report on the appropriateness of tax refunds from trusts •Require the Government to publish annually the number of tax-exempt trusts and report the figures on a regular basis •Enquire into the validity of tax returns made by trusts.
The OTPGs recommendations were published in February 2017.
