Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Treasurer, upon notice, on 1 August 2012:

(1) How many individual taxpayers were affected by the incorrect printing of barcodes on business activity statement (BAS) forms.

(2) Have any other forms been printed incorrectly since November 2007; if so, what forms and how many taxpayers were affected.

(3) What is the total cost to the Government of the incorrect printing of barcodes on BAS forms.

(4) Has any estimate been made of the cost to taxpayers; if so, what is this estimate.

(5) (a) What action was taken to fix the problems that arose as a result of the incorrect printing of barcodes; and

(b) what alternative solutions were considered.

(6) When were tax agents first notified of the problem with barcodes on BAS forms.

(7) When was Australia Post notified of the problem with barcodes on BAS forms.

(8) When was this notification communicated formally to all Australia Post outlets.

(9) How many BAS forms were processed before Australia Post was notified.

(10) What has been done regarding taxpayers who may have used, through no fault of their own,    incorrect lodgement details.

(11) What internal process does the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) have in place to ensure problems like this do not arise again.

(12) Have ATO processes been reviewed in the wake of the barcode problem.

(13) Will any taxpayer be penalised for late or incorrect lodgement of their BAS.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) Approximately 697,000 activity statements issued for June 2012 had an incorrect bar code on the statement’s payment slip. Only activity statements issued via tax agents were impacted by this printing error. Statements sent directly to taxpayers were not affected.

The bar code on the payment slip is used by Australia Post for payments made via their outlets. The number of activity statements issued via tax agents and paid at Australia Post outlets (around 156,000) is generally less than 5% of all statements issued (3.28 million).

(2) This is the first time since November 2007 that information has been printed incorrectly on an ATO form.

‘Forms’ are defined as documents issued by the ATO that contain personalised information relating to a taxpayer and need to be completed and returned to the ATO. Activity statements make up the majority of forms issued by the ATO.

(3) At present, the ATO’s efforts are focused on rectifying the error and providing the best possible taxpayer experience in the circumstances.

The ATO is not able to provide an overall costing of this printing error as it is still being determined and not yet finalised.

(4) There will be no monetary cost to impacted taxpayers as a result of this error.

(5) (a) The ATO:

(5) (b) When the error was first identified, the ATO considered re-issuing the 697,000 impacted activity statements. The ATO consulted with the ATO Tax Practitioners Forum – Tax Time 2012 briefing group which was advised of the extent of the issue and agreed with the ATO’s    proposed response not to re-issue statements. This decision was made because:

it would create substantial additional workloads for tax agents as many agents would have already forwarded statements to their clients for completion

it would create confusion for taxpayers, particularly those who had already lodged and paid

it would not completely resolve the issue as taxpayers could still potentially use the incorrect bar code in the future.

The ATO also decided not to make direct communication with impacted taxpayers because:

the address information held for this taxpayer group was that of their tax agent, who had already been advised of the error via a broadcast on 11 July 2012

the ATO believed that the advice to tax agents and mitigation strategy with Australia Post was sufficient to manage the error.

(6) Tax agents were first notified of the problem with bar codes on activity statement forms on 11 July 2012.

(7) Australia Post was notified of the problem with bar codes on activity statement forms on 10 July 2012.

(8) Australia Post notified their outlets on 13 July 2012 via their bi-weekly update.

(9) There were 5,508 payments made through Australia Post outlets before outlets were notified on 13 July 2012.

(10) Activity statement processing involves the lodgment of a form with the ATO and payment of any amount due. In this instance, lodgment of the form has not been impacted. Payments may have been incorrectly applied to another account where the bar code on an activity statement sent via a tax agent was used to make a payment through Australia Post.

To mitigate this, the ATO has identified and is closely monitoring those accounts where payments may be misdirected, and the accounts to which these payments could be applied.

(11) The ATO has reviewed existing processes at its external print provider and ensured the programming issue that caused the bar code error was corrected. Testing to ensure the error is resolved has also been completed.

The ATO has also increased its level of quality assurance on the output from its external print providers.

(12) Yes.

(13) No taxpayer will be penalised for late or incorrect payment as a result of the barcode error. Activity statement processing involves the lodgment of a form with the ATO and payment of any amount due. In this instance, lodgment of the form has not been impacted.