One of the biggest complaints from small businesses has been that there are a lot of forms for them to fill out and reports for them to complete in order to remain compliant.
The ATO has decided to make things simpler for small business by committing to reducing to reducing GST compliance costs.
This action will save both time and money for small business owners by making account setup, bookkeeping, BAS preparation and lodgement much simpler.
From 1 July 2017, small businesses will be able to easily classify transactions and prepare and lodge their BAS. The big change coming is that BAS reporting will reduce reporting labels from seven to three.
Businesses will only need to report the following GST information on their BAS:
- GST on sales (1A)
- GST on purchases (1B)
- Total sales (G1)
The ATO has been working with small business owners, tax professionals and accounting software providers such as Cashflow Manager in order to make these changes. A trial is set to start on 1 July of this year, with a full rollout beginning in July 2017.
The hope is that small business owners will have more time to focus on growing their business rather than compliance.
Find out more about simper BAS reporting at ato.gov.au/SimplerBAS.
