So i recieved a dreaded letter from the ATO today, and it really ruined my day and scared the bejesus out of me.
As some of you may or may not know, I work for a US company, we have an office in Sydney, but largely remote employees, we have an ABN and business name etc, however all of our payments generally come out of the EU or wherever is cheapest at the time for our company.
Most of this is handled by PWC.
On top of that expenses are paid by us mostly in cash or on the company credit card for large amount, the company then just reimburses us, which is all good.
I check with the ATO every year whether I need to claim those on my tax but because they are generally amounts here and there of no more than $300 at a time, that it is the companies thing to deal with and I don't need to worry about it....two accountants basically told me the same.
Anyway this letter today, shows up and basically tells me, you have $x amount of undeclared income from offshore, please explain.
Now this reaches into the 10's of thousands of dollars as it is my total income + reimbursements, with reimbursements being about $6k across the year in question.
I have run into, I wont say trouble with the ATO, more difficulties in the past because of having an overseas employer and they way they have put together my PAYG, this was all sorted and in the end there was no penalty.
But I can tell you that I am scared ****less with this one, given the amount they are claiming is undeclared (It was all declared as income apart from reimbursements) but I tell you, my accountant basically told me is, we can see it's pretty clear, but not sure they will 🙂
Anyone else who gets from overseas as i do, you can probably expect a similar letter in coming days too.
I will say however I rang the tax office to ask a few questions about what I had received and explained how i was paid, and the guy on the phone did say he has recorded this information and from what he can see, it looks like I will be fine and it is pretty clear cut, lets just hope their auditors think the same, or Silvertails might be up for fire Sale 🙂
As some of you may or may not know, I work for a US company, we have an office in Sydney, but largely remote employees, we have an ABN and business name etc, however all of our payments generally come out of the EU or wherever is cheapest at the time for our company.
Most of this is handled by PWC.
On top of that expenses are paid by us mostly in cash or on the company credit card for large amount, the company then just reimburses us, which is all good.
I check with the ATO every year whether I need to claim those on my tax but because they are generally amounts here and there of no more than $300 at a time, that it is the companies thing to deal with and I don't need to worry about it....two accountants basically told me the same.
Anyway this letter today, shows up and basically tells me, you have $x amount of undeclared income from offshore, please explain.
Now this reaches into the 10's of thousands of dollars as it is my total income + reimbursements, with reimbursements being about $6k across the year in question.
I have run into, I wont say trouble with the ATO, more difficulties in the past because of having an overseas employer and they way they have put together my PAYG, this was all sorted and in the end there was no penalty.
But I can tell you that I am scared ****less with this one, given the amount they are claiming is undeclared (It was all declared as income apart from reimbursements) but I tell you, my accountant basically told me is, we can see it's pretty clear, but not sure they will 🙂
Anyone else who gets from overseas as i do, you can probably expect a similar letter in coming days too.
I will say however I rang the tax office to ask a few questions about what I had received and explained how i was paid, and the guy on the phone did say he has recorded this information and from what he can see, it looks like I will be fine and it is pretty clear cut, lets just hope their auditors think the same, or Silvertails might be up for fire Sale 🙂
