3. SRO’s costs and taxpayer services
Conclusion
SRO has reduced its costs to collect tax in some areas. But its overall costs have increased over time. SRO cannot show if this increase is due to inefficiencies or factors outside its control.
SRO has initiatives to reduce the amount of time, effort and money taxpayers need to meet their obligations. It also has initiatives to improve how it monitors noncompliance. SRO expects these initiatives will improve taxpayers’ compliance and awareness of their obligations.
There are opportunities for SRO to further improve its services.
2. Collecting tax and reporting performance
Conclusion
SRO reliably collects the tax it knows about and the amount it collects has increased over the last 5 years. However, there is a very high likelihood that SRO could collect more tax by better analysing:
- if it is effectively reducing the tax gap
- its initiatives to improve taxpayers’ compliance.
DTF and SRO do not give Parliament and the public sufficient information on how effectively and efficiently SRO collects tax. This is due to issues with:
1. Audit context
SRO collects state taxes for the Victorian Government. The government uses this money to fund community services, such as education, health, police, infrastructure and public transport.
It is important that SRO optimises how it collects tax so the government can:
What we found and recommend
This section summarises our key findings and recommendations. Our complete findings, including supporting evidence, are detailed in the report chapters.
When reaching our conclusions, we consulted with and considered the views of the audited agencies. The agencies’ full responses are in Appendix A.
Optimise means to make something as perfect, effective or functional as possible.