ATO says its role is to “assist and support” small business as it promises plain speaking

The Australian Taxation Office says it is in the process of changing how it goes about engaging with small businesses.

Speaking at COSBOA’s MicroEconomic Challenge in Sydney, Steve Vesperman, the deputy commissioner for the tax office, admitted there was a perception in the community that the ATO was only about catching people out.

However Vesperman says the ATO is no longer “travelling on our merry way with eyes and ears closed”.

Read more: What the ATO is doing for small business – really

“We had to change our dynamic, because our role is largely about assisting and supporting and doing as much as we can to support the business community to get it right,” Vesperman says.

“The more we do that, the more we think we’re creating a viable, sustainable and forward-thinking business community that thrives in today’s environment.”

Vesperman says the ATO used to send out letters to taxpayers written in complicated language, but now favours plain English.

“We demonstrated our technical expertise in everything we sent out – beautifully crafted communiques, brochures and letters of the highest quality,” he says.

“But could you understand them? Hardly anyone could understand the information we sent out. That’s not the way it is today.”

The ATO now allows taxpayers to ask for advice after business hours and has launched its own app so small business owners can automatically calculate expenses.

The tax office is also allowing sole traders to make activity statements and pay-as-you-go installments online if they have a myGov registration, with the view of expanding these services to private entities and trusts in the near future.

“We are very committed to driving this transformation and change,” Vesperman says.

“We’ve got things happening today, we’ve got things happening tomorrow. But the bottom line is the small business community is working with us to drive these changes because, at the end of the day, it benefits us all.”