The ATO has announced the latest benchmarks for small businesses. Based on the data from 2014 income tax returns and business activity statements, the benchmarks cover over 1.3 million small businesses.
ATO Assistant Commissioner Matthew Bambrick said one of the great things about the benchmarks was that they gave a lot of small-business owners peace of mind.
“If a small business is inside the benchmark range for their industry and the ATO hasn’t received any extra information that may cause concern, they can be confident that they probably won’t hear from us”, Mr Bambrick said.
Mr Bambrick said some small businesses outside the benchmark range may simply be incorrectly registered, or the business intent may have changed since starting up. “These types of small administrative errors can be easily fixed by checking the previous year’s tax return to see which business industry code was used and then updating it in the next return and on the Australian Business Register”, Mr Bambrick said.
TIP: Business owners can use the benchmarks to compare their businesses with other similar businesses. They can also be used by the ATO to identify businesses that may not be meeting their tax obligations.
