Taxable Payments Annual Reporting (TPAR)

Hi everyone and welcome back. This months’ instalment is all about TPAR. There have been some developments with the ATO regarding TPAR on-time lodgements and pending late penalties, so I thought I would give you all a spiel so you can’t claim ignorance (sorry!).

Let’s start from the top. TPAR lodgements pertain to all business and government entities who pay contractors. Contractors include your “subbies”, consultants and independent contractors and can come in the form of sole traders, companies, partnerships or Trusts. TPAR’s MUST be lodged by August 28th each year. If you run a business that has dealings with the building and construction industry, a cleaning company, courier service, trucking service, IT or security/surveillance industries then you will need to lodge this report.

As an employer, things you must include as part of your lodgement are the ABN of the contractor, their name or business name, their address & phone number, gross amounts paid, including GST and tax withheld. If you are a government entity (I’m including this for balance – this won’t apply to most of you), you must report whether a statement by a supplier* was included, details of any grants paid to the ABN holder, the date the grant was paid and the name of the grant program. *Some suppliers are not required to quote an ABN to a payer and can fill out a form found on the ATO website to justify the payer not withholding payment to a supplier.

The ATO is cracking down on unlodged TPAR’s by issuing penalties to employers and the amounts vary depending on the size of the business doing the employing and how remiss they are. The ATO are also making it harder to remit these penalties, so if at any stage you feel you won’t be able to lodge on time, please contact your tax agent or the ATO to discuss your options. If you have already been sent three or more non-lodgement letters from the ATO about this or do not respond to the ATO attempting to contact you about your TPAR, then expect a fine.

Be proactive, not reactive and it may just save you some money and time!