24 March 2021

With many restaurants, cafes, grocery stores and retailers turning to contractors to deliver their goods to their customers during COVID-19 and lockdowns, it’s important these businesses consider whether they need to lodge a Taxable Payments Annual Report (TPAR) by 28 August 2021.

Businesses involved in industries that predominantly use contractors as workers, must lodge a (TPAR) by 28 August each year to report payments the business made to contractors. The information contained in the TPAR is then data matched to the tax returns of individual contractors to identify contractors who did not report all their income.

Businesses directly involved in the following services need to lodge TPARs:

• Building and Construction services.

• Cleaning services.

• Courier or road freight services.

• Information technology services.

• Security, investigation and surveillance services.

• Government services.

Businesses not directly involved in the business activities mentioned above do not need to lodge TPARs, unless 10% of more of their annual business income is from the business activities mentioned above. Therefore, if the payment for delivery or courier services used by a restaurant or food suppliers comprised 10% or more of their total annual business income, they will probably need to lodge a TPAR.

Penalties for non-lodgement and late lodgements of TPARs apply. After the lodgement deadline of 28 August, penalties range from one penalty unit (i.e. $222) for small businesses up to 500 times the penalty unit amount of $222 (i.e. $111,000), for each period of 28 days (or part thereof) that the TPAR is overdue.

If you believe your business may be required to lodge a TPAR this year, please speak with your adviser or get in touch with the Findex Tax Advisory team.