The deadline is fast approaching for filing your tax return for June 2010 unless you are using a registered tax agent. For most people the process is actually surprisingly simple. Many people are eligible to file a short form of an individual tax return which is available from our website here. Many new agents also stock the ‘tax pack’ which is a document that can be used as a guide to how to lodge your taxes but for a precise work is essential to contact a atlanta ga tax lawyer. The current version of this is the Taxpack 2010 which we have available here for a free download. We also have some of the other common forms which people use for lodging their individual tax returns which are the short form tax return, the eligibility criteria for the short form tax return, the short form tax return instructions. We are also progressively releasing a number of the tax forms for free use by you so that you can get a grip on how to file your taxes this year.

So, the downloads which we have available are:

Short Form individual tax return 2010:

Short Form Individual Tax Return 2010

Short Form individual tax return 2010 Instructions:

Short Form Individual Tax Return 2010 Instructions

Short Form individual tax return 2010 Eligibility Criteria:

Short Form Tax Return 2010 – Eligibility Criteria

Tax Pack 2010:

Tax Pack 2010

These are copies of the official documents provided for free from the ATO. They are public documents. You should however, get professional advice about this if you need some guidance about how to fill these forms in. Get some guidance from the lawyers available here. If you have questions about the tax filing process and you would like profession guidance, we also have lawyers available who you can contact using the contact form to the right of this page. The form will allow you to chat to a lawyer about your issue almost instantly.

Do you have questions about how to calculate the withholding amounts for withholding taxes?

Download ATO Document – Formulas for calculating amounts to be withheld

This can be a very complicated process. It needs to be done quickly and accurately though to maintain business efficiency in a way that ensures that your business is run effectively and in accordance with the taxation law. If this is not done properly it can expose your business to some very serious penalties like failure to withhold penalties or penalties for withholding too much from your employees. If you want to check how much should be being withheld from your pay, you can use this tables as well to verify what the accounting department of your organisation is doing in relation to the amounts that should be withheld so that you do not get surprised when it comes time to file your tax return at the end of the financial year and discover that you owe more tax than you thought that you were going to.

The most common form of withholding tax is through the PAYG (Pay As You Go) system of withholding. This is the system which is used for employees who earn a regular wage from working in a business or a government or not-for-profit organisation. The law mandates that tax must be withheld from a person’s pay and given to the government during the course of the administration of the tax year rather than at the end which is presumably a system that came into being to ensure that enough money is kept in reserve by the vast majority of organisations to pay taxation and that the bill will not come in one massive hit at the end of the year. It also allows the work of taxation administration to be ongoing throughout the year rather than piled all into the period when tax returns are filed. Other forms of withholding are where a TFN is not quoted and the full rate of tax is applied as a penalty such as in the case of the payment of company dividends. If you have a question about this area of the law, please do not hesitate to contact us.

To get a copy of this document click here:

ATO Document – Formulas for calculating amounts to be withheld

Getting audited by the ATO can be a daunting prospect. Ultimately its is true that honesty is the best policy and that an attempt to hide something from the ATO will almost always end in tears. You need to make sure that you have all of your documents in order and that you know exaclty what to look for when you are asked questions about what you have claimed. If you are not well prepared in this way, you may face a negative outcome of the audit and further consequences. In 2005/2006, the ATO’s compliance activities raised $6,244 million including tax, penalties and interest. This was mainly as a result of penalities imposed from audits which found that many businesses had failed to pay tax correctly.

During an audit, the ATO:

* examines the tax affairs and records of a taxpayer to ensure that reported information is accurate and to confirm the taxpayer’s tax liability;
* may examine the tax records of other persons which may shed light on the taxpayer’s tax position; and
* may cross-check data against different sources (for example, interest payment records forwarded by financial institutions) may send ATO officers to visit the taxpayer’s (or third party’s) premises to examine records.

So what are some key things to remember if you are being audited or face the prospect of being audited?

1. Document retention policy

Taxpayers should implement an appropriate document retention policy and administrative filing system to enable them to retrieve records efficiently during an audit. The tax laws impose a positive obligation on taxpayers to maintain records that document and explain all transactions and other acts engaged by the taxpayer that are relevant for the purposes of the taxation laws. Taxpayers should determine which documents are protected by “privilege”, mark them as privileged and arrange for them to be kept separate from “non-privileged” documents. This enables the taxpayer to minimise the risk of privilege being inadvertently waived.

Which documents are privileged?

Generally, if a taxpayer has a document that is privileged, then it usually does not have to show that document to the ATO or to a court. The types of privilege available to a taxpayer include legal professional privilege, accountants’ privilege and corporate board document privilege.

If you have any questions about being audited, please do not hesitate to contact us using the for to the right. We would be more than happy to help you.