Additional time to lodge documents, revised May 2004
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Background
The lodgment program for tax agents prescribes the latest dates for lodging documents with the Tax Office. The Commissioner of Taxation has the discretion to allow additional time to lodge documents (called ‘deferring the due date for lodgment of an approved form’). This discretion is contained in Division 388 of Schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953, which describes an ‘approved form’.

The administration of this discretion is guided by chapter 55 of the ATO Receivables Policy (available on the Legal Database). This policy recognises that it may be reasonable for the Commissioner to exercise his discretion for a number of reasons, including:

practice management factors, for example, the serious illness of a sole practitioner, prolonged unexpected staff absences, or prolonged expected staff absences where environmental factors have prevented replacement by suitably qualified staff
natural and other disasters, for example, flood, fire, drought or earthquake
impeded access to records, for example, records seized during a police search or retained as evidence in a court matter, and
where a small number of forms will not be lodged by the end date, despite a concerted effort to achieve lodgment for a reporting period.
This discretion is contingent on deferral requests being sent to the Tax Office in writing and on time. Requests submitted after the relevant lodgment date must demonstrate those exceptional circumstances which prevented the deferral request from being made on time. This requirement is in addition to those original circumstance(s) which necessitated the lodgment of the deferral request.

If a deferral request is received after the lodgment date without the required information it will not be considered.

Last Modified: Tuesday, 11 May 2004

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