In response to feedback from external stakeholders, the ATO has issued updated web guidance (in April 2019) on the provision of general purpose financial statements. The updated guidance provides ATO views on practical issues encountered by stakeholders when seeking to satisfy the GPFS regime.
In December 2015 tax law amendments were enacted requiring significant global entities (SGEs) to provide the ATO general purpose financial statements (GPFS) at the time they lodge a tax return, if the entity does not already lodge GPFS with ASIC within required deadlines. The amendment applied for income years beginning 1 July 2016.
In response to feedback from external stakeholders, the ATO has issued updated web guidance in April 2019. This guidance replaces previous guidance issued in September 2017. The updated guidance provides ATO views on practical issues encountered by stakeholders when seeking to satisfy the GPFS regime.
The April 2019 update seeks to:
No further formal consultation period has been announced by the ATO following the release of the April 2019 additional guidance.
KPMG has updated its practical guide ATO provision of general purpose financial statements (PDF 977KB) to assist you in understanding the impact of the new guidance issued by the ATO. The KPMG guide provides information on the issues identified in complying with the tax law amendments and includes a number of illustrative examples of the options available to entities.
The publication represents KPMG’s views based on information current at 8 April 2019.
The KPMG guide (PDF 977KB) considers a number of issues, including:
The entities most impacted by the tax law amendments will be the following types of SGE (i.e. income of A$1 billion or more) corporate taxpayers:
Further discussion on practical considerations when applying the tax law amendments can be found in the attached PDF version of the Reporting Update.
Companies that are impacted by the tax law amendments should consider how to best satisfy the GPFS requirements under the options available. The requirements may require additional information to be collected and presented in financial statements. This will likely involve significant additional time and cost.
If you have any further questions please contact your KPMG partner.