Overdue Tax and BAS for Building and Trades Businesses

The four trades-specific issues

1. TPAR, the report that cross-checks your subbies. Building and construction businesses must lodge the taxable payments annual report by 28 August each year, detailing every contractor paid. Two edges: it carries its own failure to lodge penalty when late, and it is the data-matching engine. Your TPAR is how the ATO finds your subbies' undeclared income, and their TPARs naming you is how it finds yours. Unlodged TPARs in a backlog get lodged with everything else.

2. Subcontractor classification. The employee and contractor line is construction's most expensive question: regular, labour-only subbies are frequently employees for super purposes, and for payroll tax, regardless of their ABNs. Back-dated super guarantee charge is the debt that attaches to directors personally. The roster audit is standard catch-up scope.

3. Income timing: progress claims and retentions. On accruals, income recognises as claims are certified, not when the head contractor finally pays, and retentions have their own timing. Books that recognised income on receipt understate accrual-basis quarters. The reconstruction gets this right period by period, which frequently reduces the ATO's estimated figures.

4. The ute fleet and the gear. The "utes are exempt" FBT myth at fleet scale; the car limit on the dual cabs; tools and equipment through the write-off correctly rather than expensed; and fuel tax credits, the off-road and auxiliary-equipment claims most trades businesses under-claim and can recover four years back inside the same catch-up.

The catch-up, trades edition

The standard spine with the construction ordering: BAS and any super guarantee statements first, because they carry the lockdown clock; TPARs alongside; returns behind; remission on voluntary disclosure; then the debt path. Construction dominates both the small business restructuring regime and ATO wind-up lists, and every rescue door checks the lodgment record first. Sole trader tradie rather than a company? The individual tradie catch-up covers you - this page is for the business with subbies and a fleet.

General information only - not personal tax, financial or legal advice. Consider your own circumstances or speak to a registered tax agent. Remission of penalties or interest and payment plans are decisions of the ATO and outcomes can't be guaranteed.