ATO says flexibility helped super during outage

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has received only a “handful” of claims from people and businesses affected by its major computer outage last December.

In analysis of the outage published last week, the ATO pointed to the flexibility it had shown superannuation funds and others as one of the reasons for the relatively low number of claims to date.

“Whilst some stakeholders raised the issue of compensation in their submissions or in meeting with us, to date, we have received only a handful of claims,” the ATO said in a report published last week.

“Throughout the period and since that time deferrals for lodgement and payment, discretions and waivers under the tax and superannuation laws have been applied both individually and across the affected population to support those disadvantaged by the systems outage,” it said.

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It said that, for example, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and the ATO “coordinated to allow superannuation funds to lodge later outside normal timeframes without penalty”.

“This support is also continuing with agents as they work to clear their backlogs,” the ATO report said.

However, the ATO acknowledged that there had been some unhappiness with the Commonwealth’s Scheme for Compensation for Detriment caused by Defective Administration (the CDDA Scheme).

It said some feedback included that the CDDA scheme was inflexible to deal with a major outage that impacted many stakeholders.

The ATO said it believed the CDDA scheme provided a fair system for making payments to those who could evidence disadvantage and would consider any claims received on their merits.

“The scheme balances the need to make compensation payments in appropriate circumstances with the need to carefully manage the expenditure of public moneys,” the ATO said.