BAS and IAS lodgement

We are registered with the Tax Practitioners Board as a BAS agent (registration number 25737805). That means your activity statements are prepared under real professional obligations — qualifications, professional indemnity insurance, and the code of conduct in the Tax Agent Services Act.

It also buys you time. Lodging through a registered agent can give you additional weeks on quarterly activity statements under the ATO’s lodgement program. We’ll tell you the dates that apply to your business, and remind you before them.

What we do

• Prepare the statement from books that have already been reconciled — which is the real work. A BAS is only as good as the coding underneath it.
• Check the GST treatment on the things people most often get wrong: capital purchases, hire purchase and chattel mortgages, insurance, government fees, food, and anything GST-free or input-taxed.
• Reconcile GST to the accounts before lodging, so the figures on the statement can be traced back to the ledger rather than just accepted.
• PAYG withholding and instalments — the W and T labels, matched against what payroll reported.
• Fuel tax credits where your business runs eligible vehicles or equipment and is not claiming them.
• Lodge it electronically through the agent portal, and confirm it landed.

If you are behind

Already late? That is still worth a phone call. Overdue statements are a problem that compounds, and the ATO is markedly easier to deal with when someone is visibly fixing it.

What we are not

We are BAS agents, not tax agents. We do not prepare or lodge income tax returns, and we do not give income tax advice — that is your accountant’s work, and it needs a different registration.

In practice the two fit together well: we keep the books clean and handle the activity statements through the year, and your accountant gets a file they can work from at year end. We are happy to deal with them directly so you are not the messenger. If you do not have an accountant yet, we can suggest some local ones — with no arrangement between us either way.

Common questions

Can you do my income tax return? No — we’re BAS agents, not tax agents. Income tax is your accountant’s work. We keep the books clean underneath it and deal with your accountant directly if you’d like.

I have overdue statements. How bad is it? Usually more fixable than it feels. Ring us — the sooner there’s a plan, the sooner it’s behind you.

Do I get more time if I lodge through you? Usually, yes — lodging through a registered agent can give you additional weeks on quarterly statements under the ATO’s lodgement program.

Do you check the GST or just lodge what the software says? We check it. The GST is reconciled to the accounts first, so every figure on the statement traces back to your ledger.