Tax Office Harrassment

[Modal Harmony]

Hello All, the details in the first 2 paragraphs are sketchy, but it is the 3rd paragraph which has the queries.

An Engineering colleague of mine relayed this disastrous story yesterday. He and his wife have a home based business and he is employed at an Engineering consultancy where I also work. He was registered with the ATO to pay provisional tax, but he changed this many months ago to be under the classification of personal services determination under the ATO guidelines. The ATO were informed and all documentation sent to the ATO's satisfaction.

In the past 9 months or so, he has received much aggravation from the ATO from various departments in different capital cities who still think he is under the provisional tax ruling and hence must forward estimate and pay tax. They believe him to be in arrears signifcantly, despite him telling them more than once that he is now PAYG (many phone calls and registered mail documentation).

Have any other Forum members had trouble with the ATO in this way, either through private businesses, IP's or other dealings? if so, does my colleague have any recourse such as Ombudsman (does this exist for ATO?? ) since the ATO are now threatening legal action against him and his wife.

Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

K&R

 

[Debt Junkie]

Oh, sounds like government to me!

Yes, my parents had a problem with the tax office a few years back - ATO was holding over a $1,000 of my folks cash and didn't want to give it back (sometimes they denied having it). It took a few calls to get the cash back, and I can be very sharp on the phone ... I have a background in complaints ...

What I would suggest is that you take it to the top. Always works best in government - don't faff around with middle men (Tax Commissioners etc ...). Write a letter to the Minister for the ATO. NB address it to the Minister, no one else - government has rules relating to who things are addressed to and the speed at which a matter should be resolved!

From there, they should move faster to get the matter resolved in writing ... and then you'll have something to wave around in front of naggers ...

Remember, when dealing with government, listen quietly for ten minutes, then say 'Uh, that's great, now get me your supervisor'.

DJ

 

[Brenda Irwin]

Remember, when dealing with government, listen quietly for ten minutes, then say 'Uh, that's great, now get me your supervisor'.DJ

That's deadly and never a truer word spoken.

 

[TheCamel]

"get me your supervisor" doesn't work with me.

I had a discussion with my assistant director once, after i did the HDA certification, came back and told her I got 100% for the customer service sections, but did less wellon the technical sections, where i expected to do better.

She laughed, and said "That doesn't surprise me Andrew. You know what good customer service is.. you know how to handle a customer's needs.. you just... don't do it... very often. "

Asking for my supervisor often gets you nowhere... and waving the fact that you are an EL2, or whatever, in front of my face, just annoys me more if you are being demanding. I was always taught that a customer is a customer, and everyone gets treated the same.
(Of course, i added an exception to that based on the above.. try and be more important, chances are, i'll make you less important, cause let's face it, your ticket is in my hand at this time..)

(oh and it REALLY annoyed me, if you went above me to my supervisor and plead your importance there)