What was broken
A building-materials trading business received a cluster of tax notices covering credit mismatches, return discrepancies, and a demand raised on assumed turnover. The promoters, unfamiliar with the adjudication process, faced escalating deadlines and the prospect of significant demands crystallising if the notices went unanswered.
What we did
CapEasy reviewed each notice, reconciled the disputed periods against the tax filings and the books, and prepared documented, deadline-bound replies to the regulator. Where credit was genuinely available, we substantiated it; where returns needed correction, we regularised them, and we represented the company through the regulatory interactions.
Where it landed
The notices were resolved with the disputed demands substantially reduced, and the company’s tax filings were brought back into good standing. A monthly reconciliation routine was introduced to prevent similar mismatches from recurring.
What an ATO GST review actually opens with
When the Australian Taxation Office queries a business activity statement, the first ask is not an argument — it is a reconciliation. Business.gov.au’s own guidance on preparing a BAS says as much before a notice ever enters the picture: reconcile the BAS figures with your records, and check that purchases and sales are reported in the correct period. A review or verification request tests exactly that — whether the GST you reported ties to the ledger behind it, and whether it landed in the period it actually belongs to.
The engagement’s pattern is the same failure everywhere GST exists: returns get lodged on time, but the reconciliation behind them slips, and a mismatch that started as a rounding or timing difference compounds across periods until a regulator notices it before the business does. The fix is never a cleverer letter. It is going back through the disputed periods and rebuilding the number from the records, the same way it was reconstructed in this engagement against the return data and the books.
The records a GST reconciliation actually needs
The ATO’s record-keeping rules define exactly what has to exist to answer a GST query: tax invoices, BAS working papers, and import documentation, alongside the sales and expense records those figures were built from. Those aren’t optional extras kept for audit season — they’re the working file a reconciliation is built from when a period is questioned. Records generally need to be kept for five years from the later of when they were made or the transaction they relate to was completed, and that clock stays open longer while the ATO could still amend the assessment they support.
A reconciliation done well answers the notice at the line level: which invoice, which period, which figure disagrees with which record, and why. That is the same discipline this engagement applied against GSTR-2B and the books — substantiate what is genuinely supportable, correct what needs correcting, and put both in front of the regulator with the paper behind them, not a general assurance that the numbers are fine.
Who actually answers the notice
Preparing the reconciliation and lodging the response to the ATO are two different acts, and Australian law keeps them separate. Anyone preparing or lodging a BAS on a business’s behalf has to be registered with the Tax Practitioners Board — business.gov.au is explicit that there is no protection if an unregistered tax or BAS agent is used, and points businesses to the TPB’s public register to check before engaging anyone. That split holds for a GST review the same way it holds for a routine BAS: the reconciliation work is preparation, and the response to the ATO goes out under a registered agent’s name and accountability.
CapEasy’s part in an Australian GST review is the reconciliation itself — matching the disputed periods against the ledger, assembling the tax invoices and BAS working papers behind each figure, and building the response file line by line. Everything is prepared for your registered BAS or tax agent to lodge; the correspondence with the ATO and the position taken on the notice sit with them.
The routine that keeps the next notice from being a fire drill
The most durable line in the source engagement is not the resolution — it is what came after: a monthly reconciliation routine, introduced specifically to stop the same mismatches recurring. That is the transferable lesson for a GST-registered Australian business, whether GST turnover just crossed the $75,000 threshold that makes registration mandatory or has been well above it for years. A BAS figure reconciled to the ledger the month it is lodged is a five-minute check. The same reconciliation, rebuilt across several disputed periods once a review letter has already arrived, is days of work against a deadline.
What to take from it
- A GST review notice opens by testing whether your reported figures reconcile to your own records and land in the right period — answer with that reconciliation, not an argument.
- Keep the underlying GST records — tax invoices, BAS working papers, import documentation — on the same clock the ATO can still review them: generally five years, longer while a review period stays open.
- Only a Tax Practitioners Board-registered BAS or tax agent can lodge a response on your behalf; check the TPB’s public register before engaging anyone.
- Substantiate what is genuinely supportable and correct what needs correcting — a reconciliation that mixes the two is stronger than one that argues every line is fine.
- A monthly reconciliation habit is the cheap version of this discipline; rebuilding it retrospectively against a notice deadline is the expensive one.