A big thank you to the ATO

An associate referred one of his clients to me for advice.

The client, an 80 year old aged pensioner, had received a notification from the ATO that he was in arrears with submitting tax returns and would be referred to a collection agency if returns were not submitted promptly.

As it turns our neither the client or his wife had submitted a return to the ATO for over 10 years!

But neither was required to as they both had incomes below the tax free threshold.

However a little bit of investigation revealed that they had not claimed refunds of Imputation Credits. The imputation credits were from a few shares and indirect investments they held in Australian companies.

Between them, they will now receive in excess of $3,200 in refunds.

Ironically, the client just received another notice saying that:

• the first notice was issued in error,

• the ATO is sorry and

• the ATO would not be referring the client to a collection agency.

A further irony is that the ATO had all the information required through the income matching system. Their system that ties income - pensions, dividends, interest etc to tax payers through their tax file numbers.

Thank you to the ATO - for your mistake which helped this old couple receive what is justly theirs.