28 February 2020
• Lodge tax return for non-taxable large/medium entities as per the latest year lodged (except individuals).
• Lodge and pay December 2019 Quarterly BAS

21 March 2020
• Lodge and pay February 2020 monthly BAS

31 March 2020
• Lodge tax return for companies and super funds with total income of more than $2 million in the latest year lodged (excluding large/medium taxpayers), unless the return was due earlier.
• Lodge tax return for individuals and trusts whose latest return resulted in a tax liability of $20,000 or more, excluding large/medium trusts.

21 April 2020
• Lodge and pay March 2020 BAS

The ATO has recently expanded its Tax Avoidance Taskforce activity to include top 500 private groups, high wealth private groups, and medium and emerging private groups.

The Tax Avoidance Taskforce was originally conceived in 2016 to ensure that multinational enterprises, large public and private business pay the right amount of tax. The Taskforce’s main role is to investigate what the ATO considers aggressive tax avoidance arrangements, including profit shifting.

As a part of the expansion, the ATO now has three “programs” for private groups under the Taskforce’s umbrella: top 500 private groups, high wealth private groups, and medium and emerging private groups. The expansion that will perhaps affect the most taxpayers will be the program covering medium and emerging private groups. This program includes private groups linked to Australian resident individuals who, together with their associates, control wealth between $5 million and $50 million, and businesses with an annual turnover of more than $10 million that are not public or foreign owned and are not linked to a high wealth private group. The ATO estimates this will cover around 97% of the total private group population.

The company tax rate is 30% for entities with aggregated turnover above $50 million or with passive income above 80%.

The company tax rate for entities with aggregated turnover below $50 million is generally as follows:

Franking a dividend however is based on the prior year tax rate.

Although it sounds great, many companies will end up with excess franking credits trapped in the company from when the rates were 30%.