What is a Taxation Loophole? Also referred to as 'Tax Planning', it's not illegal, but it's also not something the ATO wants you to do. The ATO has made tax deductions and tax offsets to help the taxpayer minimise tax in Australia, while loopholes are points in the law that the ATO have overseen.
To avoid withholding tax, you can either supply your TFN when you apply for an account, or get in touch with your bank at any time to provide your TFN via internet banking, over the phone or at your nearest branch.
In Australia, if you have an Australian bank account or if you work and earn money, you need to have a tax file number (TFN) and lodge an annual tax return with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The tax year (also called the financial year) runs from 1 July to 30 June.
If you make $75,000 a year living in Australia, you will be taxed $16,342. That means that your net pay will be $58,658 per year, or $4,888 per month. Your average tax rate is 21.8% and your marginal tax rate is 34.5%.
Tax-free threshold and tax rates
If you're an Australian resident, the first $18,200 you earn is tax-free. This is known as the tax-free threshold. You can claim the tax-free threshold when you complete your TFN declaration with your employer.
Your Australian bank account statements are accessible to the ATO. The ATO is endowed with extensive legal authority, which allows it to access your personal bank information. Because of these capabilities, the ATO is able to get your Australian bank statements straight from your financial institution.
The ATO can, and will, check your bank accounts, cross reference payments against an ABN and confirm missing income from your tax return.
If you are in debt to the ATO, you may be issued with a garnishee notice on your bank accounts with a demand to pay the ATO within a specified amount of time. Failure to do so can result in your bank accounts being frozen and a suspension on your trading accounts.
Retirement exemption
There is a lifetime limit of $500,000 CGT exemption on the sale of an active business asset. For those who are under 55, the proceeds from the sale of the asset must be paid into a superannuation fund or retirement savings account.
Those who deliberately hide their wages or file false claims to avoid paying their taxes are violating the law. Government officials who manipulate the tax system by using their administrative position to claim benefits and payments they are not entitled to are also violating the law.
General interest charge. If you don't pay on time, we will automatically add a general interest charge (GIC) to what you owe. Your debt will grow each day your debt remains unpaid. Interest calculates on a daily compounding basis on the amount outstanding and is added to your account periodically.
The only tax debts that can be considered for release are: income tax. PAYG instalments. fringe benefits tax (FBT)
Every Australian tax return goes through 20 computer checks, and when the system picks up inaccurate data, it notifies an auditor and triggers a review. These already intense processes grow more sophisticated every year. Indeed, it's never been easier for the ATO to pick up discrepancies.
Centrelink has very wide powers to thoroughly investigate deposits that have been made into your account. For example, it has the power to obtain your information from other government agencies as well as accessing information from banks, building societies and credit union accounts.
ATO data is provided under table item 6 in table 1 in section 355-65 of Schedule 1 to the TAA. To detect Centrelink clients failing to declare assets, we match all beneficiaries against trust data from the tax return database. This identifies welfare beneficiaries who are also recipients of trust distributions.
On your tax return, including all capital gains events
If you didn't declare the sale of shares or rental property on your tax return, the ATO might flag your return for a review. Data matching with other government agencies and financial institutions is possible because of ATO's sophisticated technology.
You must submit a TTR to AUSTRAC for each individual cash transaction of A$10,000 or more. If you suspect your customer is structuring their transactions to avoid the TTR reporting threshold, or is transacting with proceeds of crime, you must submit a suspicious matter report (SMR) to AUSTRAC.
Telstra and retail giant Wesfarmers dropped out of the top 10 in the report released on Thursday, as BHP was revealed to be the single largest taxpayer. The company paid $7.3 billion in 2020-21, up from $4.6 billion the prior year. The company's BHP Iron Ore (Jimblebar) entity paid $2.4 billion.
There's no limit on how much money you can give or receive as a gift! However, there are some occasions where tax may be payable, or capital gains tax (CGT) may apply. For example, when gifting property, shares or crypto assets.
How to claim the tax-free threshold. You can usually claim the tax-free threshold on the first $18,200 of income you earn in the income year. This is called the tax-free threshold.