ATO INTEGRATED CLIENT ACCOUNT

Kym

Back in 2003/04 the ATO issued a memo to all Accounts and Bookkeepers that as far as the GST moneys go they are NOT a DEBTOR or a CREDITOR.

The GST money was allways theirs, it never belongs to any business at any stage. So they should NOT be treated like a Debtor or Creditor. And if that is the case you should not be createing a Supplier card for them, and you should not be be using Invoices or Bills to record payments of GST.

A question has also been raised on how to record the General Interest Charges.

It is very simple first create a Other Expense Account 9-XXXX called ATO General Interest Charges.

Then when you get one record a General Journal as follows:

Then when you pay the ATO using the Spend Money just pay the amount showing in the Liability ICA account.

Another way to do this, is to set-up a Supplier Card "ATO - Aust Tax Office". Then enter a Purchase, dated at the end of the relevant month quarter and using the above allocations, except for the Integrated Client Account.

Then raise a Pay Bill entry, dated with the payment date.

The ATO card should show a zero balance, after the Pay Bill entry.

Kym Yeoward CPA and CC

Darwin

 Hi GDay53,

I never knew the ATO actually told people about this but I have been trying to get that message across for ages.

Your accounts receivables and payables are actually Trade Debtors and Trade Creditors, the operative word here being TRADE! In  other words your suppliers and clients in the normal course of business.

Any ATO liability, whether for GST or Income Tax due or refundable is similar to a loan/refund due from a financial institution and should be shown in the balance sheet seperate from Trade accounts.

You can still set up a card as a supplier or customer (which means you can assign a default a/c) and make the liability or asset account set as a credit card or bank account type so you can do a spend money or receive money to it, which just makes it simpler to do than having to change both lines on the GJ entry.

Another big thing to remember in all this is that when the ATO give a remission of interest charged (which happens a lot) and offsets the GIC interest you need to record both these entries.

While it seems pointless and time consuming, I do know that come Income tax time and auto populating, all the remissions of interest come into the tax return as income, but oh my oh my, the actual interst charged does not populate as an expense.  How amazing!

I believe it is important to recognise that MYOB AccountRight is not an Accounting package it is business management software.

As such the entry of ATO as a Supplier has merit particularly when dealing with clients who want a plain and simple report on who do I owe money to. 

Although not my preference I have used Payables for WorkCover, ATO and even Super for some clients who insist on wanting just the 1 Sheet who do I owe money to. I have never received communication from the ATO directing me how to enter into MYOB and why would they. The software entries using payables has no bearing on what is reported to them. Sure it requires a bit of tidying up before it it ready for the accountant to work on. But these clients tend to have once a year contact with their accountants but weekly what do I owe requirements. Remember the customer is always right, maybe not correct but always right 

All good comments and suggestions.

Mine is always to separate the PAYG from the BAS entry and record the PAYG using Pay Liabilities.  This area provides great reconciliation functionality when used  for all payroll liabilities.

Another reason is that often the PAYG is on a different reporting cycle to GST. I have both monthly PAYG and quarterly BAS, and Quarterly PAYG and monthly BAS in my client roster! So I prefer to always use Pay Liabilities for PAYG, plus any other payroll deductions such as Child Support or donations, because it makes it so simple to get the dates correct. It also gets the back end entry correct - how many times have you taken on a new client with the payroll liability accounts a nightmare? Using Payroll Liabilities ensures the PAYG Withholding liability account stays current.

My entries are:

Process PAYG and other deductions using Payroll Liabilities, debiting the ATO clearing account.

Process GST, FTC and any other non-payroll components of the BAS also to the ATO clearing account.

Pay one amount from the bank account physically to the ATO, and in MYOB treat it as a transfer brom the bank account to the ATO clearing account.