Individuals and businesses with cash flow difficulties sometimes use the ATO like a bank overdraft. They deliberately don’t pay their taxes on time and whilst they may incur interest in doing so, it allows them to use the monies owing to the ATO for other purposes.

Up until now, the ATO have been very slow at chasing outstanding monies owing to it but this may change. Soon they will be able to disclose tax debt information to credit reporting bureaus which may have serious and inescapable consequences.