Activity Statement 001 'Overdue': your BAS account explained

001 is the integrated client account used for activity statements. That covers your BAS, your PAYG instalments and your PAYG withholding obligations, all recorded on the one account.

Because those obligations share an account, the running balance mixes GST, instalments and withholding amounts together. That is why the number on the 001 account often does not match any single statement you remember.

An overdue status against 001 means one or more activity statements have not been lodged, or an amount on the account is unpaid. As with the income tax account, the word itself does not tell you which of the two applies.

The usual cause is a missing statement. Once you are registered for GST or have withholding obligations, the ATO expects a statement for each period whether or not there was any activity.

This is the point most people are caught by: a nil BAS still has to be lodged. A quiet quarter, a business that has stopped trading, a period with no sales at all - each still needs a statement lodged showing nil. Skipping it leaves the period open and the account overdue.

The other cause is an unpaid amount. GST collected, an instalment raised, or withholding reported but not paid all sit on the 001 account until they are cleared.

If you are not sure which quarters are open, the BAS due dates guide sets out the standard quarterly periods so you can match them against what the ATO is showing.

Unlodged activity statements attract a failure to lodge penalty, and the penalty applies per statement, so a backlog of quarters compounds faster than a backlog of annual returns.

Unlodged periods also block the picture. The ATO cannot finalise what you owe on the account while statements are missing, which means a payment plan on the activity statement balance is difficult to arrange and the figure keeps moving.

Where an amount is unpaid, the general interest charge accrues on the balance daily, and the debt can progress to firmer recovery action.

Lodge first, in order. Activity statements are lodged period by period, oldest first, with nil statements lodged where there was no activity. Reconstructing a couple of years of quarters is ordinary work and does not require a complete set of records to begin. Our overdue BAS and GST page explains how a backlog is put back together and lodged in the right sequence.

Then deal with penalties and debt. Once every period is lodged, the account balance is real. At that point failure to lodge penalties can be challenged or remission requested, and the balance can be put onto a payment arrangement.

If you are behind on both activity statements and income tax returns, they are handled together rather than separately - the two accounts affect each other. A free assessment covers both sides, tells you which periods are open, and gives you a fixed fee before anything starts.