The ATO are committed to administering the tax and superannuation system in a way that makes it as easy as possible for taxpayers to comply. Most people want to do the right thing so they’re always looking for helpful ways to improve how you engage with them, to make it easier and cheaper for you.
Making it easier to comply describes their current and future priorities in delivering better services to you. Their research tells us that their relationship with the community is improving over time, but they also know there are a few areas where their report card says we ‘could do better’. They’re working on those within the parameters of our budget.
Previously, they have published Making it easier to comply as a printed booklet. This year, embracing a faster and more cost-effective online option, they’ve uploaded their ‘report card’ directly to their website – www.ato.gov.au. This will enable them to make regular updates and keep you better informed.
ATO Overview
“We are committed to being flexible, responding to changing priorities and improving our services. To achieve this we look for ways to make it easier, cheaper and more personalized for the community to interact with us. By this we mean:
• Easier: we aim to make it easier for you to understand your tax and superannuation obligations and how to meet them.
• Cheaper: we aim to make it cheaper for you to comply with your obligations by reducing the work, time and effort involved.
• More personalized: we aim to provide products and services that make sense to you and will target our compliance activities to minimize their impact on those who are trying to comply.
In these pages we outline major initiatives we are introducing to make it easier for people to comply with their obligations. Our Compliance Program outlines the wider range of services we provide to help people comply with their obligations and receive their entitlements.
We use a set of principles to guide the design of these improvements and to ensure that we understand and meet your needs. We will also continue to consult, collaborate and co – design. With the community to guide our future priorities and improve community interactions with us.
Our current priorities are to:
• continue to improve our website
• continue to make it easier for individuals to complete and lodge their tax return using e-tax, including pre-filling
• continue to improve our differentiated service and treatment
• help connect people to their super
• help business interact with us online
• provide you with an integrated view of your tax position
• consolidate our A better way for tax agents
• Work with other government agencies to rationalise government reporting and registration requirements to minimize red tape.
We’ve learned some important lessons from our experiences so far and we know we have to continuously take new legislative requirements, government initiatives and community expectations into account when we plan for the future. We also look at how people use our products and services and how satisfied they are with them to see whether we’re delivering what they want and what improvements we can make.
Our focus is on continual improvement. The initiatives we implement, through until 2010, under our change program will be a big part of delivering improvements to the way the community interacts with us. Our community experience tables provide detailed information about the specific initiatives we’re working on.”
For further information on compliance Contact Us, or locate one of our experienced team in an area near you, under “Meet the Team” at the top of this page.
