Changes to ATO planned systems shutdown for March 2008
Wednesday 20th February, 2008
In eLink 06/08 (dated 20th February 2008) the ATO advised Tax Agents of changes to their planned systems shutdown in March 2008. The information below is taken directly from the ATO website:
What has changed?
Over the past few months we have been telling you we would shutdown our systems during the Easter break to make some significant improvements to our processing systems.
Our plan was to upgrade the income tax and FBT components during this shutdown. We have been testing these systems and, while we’re confident the FBT component is ready to go, the new income tax functionality is not testing quite as well.
We have always said the last thing we’ll do is implement system changes that have the potential to seriously impact agents, the community, our own people and the revenue system.
With this in mind we believe there are significant risks in going ahead with the new system for income tax changes at this time.
We still plan to rollout FBT and will continue testing income tax until we are satisfied it is ready.
What does this mean for you?
We will still shutdown at 2.00pm AEDT Thursday 20 March through to 24 March (Easter Monday).
The tax agent portal will be unavailable over these five days.
We have previously said you would need to lodge paper returns by 7 March and ELS returns by 9 March to ensure your clients could get their refunds before shutdown. This is no longer the case. You can continue to lodge normally.
You will not see the new notice of assessment until the income tax changes are implemented.
When will the income tax system changes be rolled out?
With tax time just around the corner we are concerned that updating our income tax system could seriously impact agents and their clients at the busiest time of year.
For this reason, we plan to hold off until a lower volume period and a less inconvenient time for agents and their clients – most likely in the last quarter of 2008. While this is another nine months down the track it is the next practical window of opportunity.
Bill Gibson
Acting Second Commissioner of Taxation
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