Welcome to our March monthly newsletter!

The ATO have recently begun auditing businesses that have claimed JobKeeper payments which has resulted in over $200 million of overpayments. They have found around $155 million of the overpayments were made to businesses that were deliberately being dishonest in their application for the payment which will be required to be paid back. The other $50 million of overpayments have been due to honest mistakes and will not be required to be paid back. Businesses that have claimed this wage subsidy should ensure they are keeping proper payroll and accounting records to support their applications in case of audit.

Monthly tax tip:

The loss carry back tax offset is a recent offset which will be available this financial year. Eligible entities will be able to carry back tax losses made in 2020-2022 income years. The offset would be applied to any income year between 2019-2021 where profits were made and income tax became liable to the taxpayer. This offset is only available to eligible entities including companies, corporate limited partnerships and public trading trusts that carry on a business and have a turnover of less than $5 billion. This is a great tax saving for small corporate businesses so please ensure that you contact your accountant to carry-back your business losses to be refunded for previous income tax paid.