This annual list is often more highly anticipated than any of the BRW Rich Lists and there is little reward in being featured. Each year the ATO announce occupations, industries or areas that they intend to focus their resources. This year in their sights are small business benchmarks, wealthy individuals, sham contracting, work-related expenses and employer obligations for SMEs. Occupations and industries as diverse as as diverse as real estate, hospitality, carpentry, medicine, football and aviation will be in focus for the year to June 30, 2012.
The ATO don’t limit themselves to these industries and always highlight their interest in work related deductions and of course the cash economy and individuals and businesses operating in industries that a known to operate in cash.
ATO Highlight Business Benchmarking Again
For businesses, benchmarking is becoming an important consideration and the ATO have once again highlighted this area.
Knowing how your business performs in relation to similar businesses (by way of size, geography and industry) is valuable for two reasons:
- this information can assist when considering your own strategies and evaluating your own performance. Benchmarks can be adopted as Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) or budget targets.
- more importantly, the ATO are using benchmarks as a method for identifying non-complying businesses. You may have a reason for performing outside the ‘benchmarked average’ but the ATO may still target your business for further investigation. This is often a time consuming and costly distraction for businesses.
Negotiis have responded to the ATO’s increasing interest in business benchmarking by developing our business services to include the option for benchmarking to be undertaken for our clients. We have partnered with a leading benchmark provider to ensure we have access to the latest data and statistics for a large number of industries. Our team are able to tailor these benchmarks to your business to compare against a consolidated average of similar operating businesses to a significant level of detail.
We encourage our businesses to be proactive and undertake a benchmark of their businesses to identify areas of strength and particularly highlight areas for improvement. A benefit of readily identifying areas not performing within the benchmark is that a strategy can be put in place to combat this before the ATO express interest.
More Information
Interested in learning more about Business Benchmarks? Contact Amanda Newton, Director – Client Services on 9394 7024 or via email amanda.newton@negotiis.com.au
You can read more about the ATO 2012 Compliance Program here.