Letter From ATO

S

smallbuyer

Hello,

I am curious if anyone else has recieved a letter from the ATO titled ''Help with claiming your rental expences'' that starts ''We are writing because you claimed interest expences for your rental property in your 2009 income tax return.....'' They arent asking for anything they claim they are just providing info (a info sheet was attached). Does anyone think they are targetting rental property claims, or me in particular? Or is this just what it claims to be helpful information.

I really want to avoid an audit on my rental properties not because i believe anything is wrong but i have moved between cities and the older paperwork is a bit scattered. The last thing i need is to spend days finding wading through endless ancient paperwork boxes for the tax man. I reakon if they audit you and find nothing wrong they should pay you for your wasted time :)
 
Don't stress, I got one too last year and one this week as well. Its just a friendly reminder from the ATO, intended to spook a few people to make sure they do the right thing.

Its not a pre-cursor to an audit.
 
Didn't get one for rental expenses (as we did not have an IP last financial yr), but we did get one for work-related expenses. I think they're just mass-mailing a whole lot of people....
 
Yeah i remember getting that last year and the year before

BUt if you got an ATO compliant deductions report from a quantity surveyor..shouldn't be a big deal.
 
You get that letter if your claims are large, if they have increased since last year or if your pattern of claims fall outside what they consider to be the normal benchmarks. Your tax agent is also notified that you receive that letter.

They are used as fear tends to be a cheaper way to collect additional funds as opposed to a full audit. I'd say 90% of people who get those letters get into a small panic. If your claims are sound and you have the proper documentation to support your claim, you should be ok.
 
smallbuyer said:
Does anyone think they are targetting rental property claims, or me in particular?
Click to expand...

This is just the standard letter they send out just before the auditors go through you like a dose of salts.

We got this last year and then were audited less than 2 weeks after.

As long as you have every scrap of paper to necessarily back up all of your claims over the past 7 years, you'll be fine. Good luck. :)
 
I got one for the first time

I am so glad someone raised this. I was about to ditch my accountant because of this letter. I thought they must have done something wrong because I lived in two of my IP's at different times over the financial year. I have never received one before!
JASA
 
A hundred or so of our clients have received similar letters, nothing to worry about. As Mry stated you would've got it because you are outside the ATO Benchmarks or it's the first time you've claimed a particular deduction in your tax return.
 
As an example, if you prepaid interest one year on your individual return, which is a legal claim to make, your interest deductions almost double. However, the ATO don't know that you've prepaid as you don't inform them on the return and may query that claim. So it isn't that you've done anything wrong or your tax agent.
 
Thanks for all your comments and info.

I dont think my properties had anything usual last year except higher interest than the year before (anyone care to guess why?) As interest rates have dropped i would say my total claims will be a lot less this year which should keep the tax man happy :)

Dazz how much of your time did getting audited take? Did someone actually come out and go through your papers or did they just ask you to send some things in? Either way what an annoying waste of time.

Cheers
 
Rob Williams said:
I feel unloved. I didn't get any letter from the ATO :(
Click to expand...

I'll send you a letter Rob, hmmmm if I can just remember how to send a physical letter! :D

We received a couple of them last week from ATO as well. From memory mine was the property letter and my wife received the shares letter.

Meanwhile still waiting for the new tax tables to arrive at the newsagent.....:rolleyes:
 
steveadl said:
Meanwhile still waiting for the new tax tables to arrive at the newsagent.....:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Is this for your payroll?
I used to be a payroll software designer. Part of that job was to send out the coefficients each year to a user base of a couple of thousand. Not sure why, but more often than not, they would release them at the last possible minute, then I'd cop the hate mail and phone calls from angry users for the delay in sending them out.
That was many years ago. Seems the ATO haven't changed much.
 
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