Past Initiatives

Following the release of the joint Discussion Paper 'Early thinking: Operational governance for trans-Tasman e-Invoicing' requesting consideration and feedback from key stakeholders, ABSIA prepared a submission on behalf of our members and relevant industry stakeholders.

This submission considered issues and topics around:

• Australia's role in the global and regional trade context;
• Australia's potential to be the world leader in providing e-invoicing solutions on an interoperable open standards platform;
• The advantages and disadvantages of different types of legal personalities;
• Stakeholder and participant interests, roles, responsibilities and decision rights;
• Accountabilities, risks and liabilities;
• Operational continuity, reliability and sustainability, and;
• Cost-effectiveness and funding.

The submission collated feedback on the above considerations and the questions outlined in the discussion paper from software developers, e-invoicing providers and businesses currently using e-invoicing.

The Inspector General of Taxation (IGT) announced a review to examine the future of the tax profession in Australia. "The review is deliberately forward-looking and seeks to raise awareness about the risks challenges and opportunities presented by technological, social, policy and regulatory changes."

As a part of the review process, the IGT called for Submission from interested parties to help it and the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) identify:

• The significant changes ahead;
• Aspects of the current system that should be retained or augmented;
• Aspects of the current system that need to be discarded, and;
• The new strategies required to meet future challenges and realise the potential benefits.

ABSIA prepared a submission on behalf of its members, sponsored by some key ABSIA Members. 

After receiving ABSIA's Submission, the Office of the IGT expressed appreciation for the opportunity to interview ABSIA directly.

ABSIA presented a one hour webinar with a panel of ABSIA subject matter experts. This webinar covered:

• The Operational Framework - an introduction
• DSP registration and certification/self-assessment
• Multi-factor authentication and identity management
• Onshore and offshore processing and storage
• Supply chain visibility
• Data encryption

Past Vice President, Karen Lay-Brew, spoke at the 4th Data Transparency 2016 and the White House Open Data Innovation Summit held in Washington DC. At these events, US agencies acknowledged the engagement model between the ATO and industry through ABSIA as best practice and Australia's Standard Business Reporting (SBR) program was showcased.

Past Vice President, Karen Lay-Brew, spoke at the 2016 Women in Tech conference. Speaking about "aligning ICT vision, mission and strategy with business direction to maximise outcomes," Karen focused on helping organisations align their objectives with their overall company business goals.

ABSIA provided an ELS2SBR submission to the ATO based on industry feedback and concern seeking:

1. Commitment to review and improve the current SBR test environment;
2. Commitment to improve the release schedule and delivery of MIGs and actual services, and;
3. An extension of the ELS specification and its associated gateways for 2016 and 2017. Enabling both systems to aptly run in parallel, manage risk levels and allow for a more seamless transition to the SBR environment.

The ATO conducted a Round Table Discussion in Melbourne with ABSIA with all of the developers investing in the ELS and SBR program and key ATO project staff. They advised in summary, that the ATO is:

• Committed to improving the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the External Vendor Testing Environment (EVTE);
• Committed to improve the service and delivery of essential elements to the program and noted some generic improvement opportunities that they will jointly support, and;
• Committed to being improved to avoid market failure for tax time 2016 and intend to continue to drive the necessary channel shift to support the Government's digital agenda.

On 6 March 2015, ABSIA submitted a response to the Australian Taxation Office's (ATO) Single Touch Payroll (STP) Discussion Paper. The ATO initially proposed a starting date of 1 July 2016 for STP, which ABSIA and our Members found to be an unrealistic timeline. As a part of this submission, ABSIA also identified other areas of concern, taking into consideration that STP for a software developer is much more than just producing an STP product, it would encompass many other components. As a result of this submission, the launch of STP was pushed back and it allowed for avenues to be established for ABSIA Members and other software developers to work collaboratively on the scope and implementation of STP.