Running a business in Australia means a recurring cycle of lodgements to the ATO and ASIC. Working out which ones apply to you, when they fall due, and in what form is most of the difficulty.
By Naletova Advisory Pty Ltd — Registered Tax Agent No. 26027163. Last updated: 5 September 2026.
Australian tax and corporate law attaches a set of repeating reporting and payment duties to almost every business. Which of them land on you depends on how you are structured, whether you are registered for GST, whether you have staff, and how much you turn over. Miss one, or lodge it wrong, and the consequences run from penalties and interest through to losing good standing with the ATO or ASIC.
The Business Activity Statement is the form GST-registered businesses use to report and pay most of what they owe the ATO. How often you lodge one — monthly, quarterly or annually — follows the size of the business.
A Business Activity Statement may include:
These deadlines are strictly enforced. Late lodgement may attract failure-to-lodge penalties and general interest charges. Registered tax agents may lodge on behalf of clients and can access deadlines not available to self-preparers.
Every business lodges an annual return covering its income and deductible expenses for the year ending 30 June. What that return actually looks like depends entirely on structure:
Self-preparers are generally due by 31 October. Clients of a registered tax agent are covered by that agent’s lodgement program, which provides additional time.
FBT catches the non-cash things you give employees or their associates — the company car, the gym membership, the entertainment. Its year does not line up with the income tax year: it runs 1 April to 31 March. Returns and any tax owing are due by 21 May, later again if a registered tax agent lodges them.
If you have employees, payroll information goes to the ATO on every pay run, through Single Touch Payroll-enabled software. It replaced the annual payment summary for most employers. STP Phase 2, which wants each component of a payment broken out separately, now applies to all of them.
Every ASIC-registered company receives a statement on the anniversary of its registration. You read it, confirm or correct what is on it — officeholders, registered address — and pay the annual review fee. Leave the fee unpaid or wrong details standing and you collect late fees, and eventually deregistration.
The ATO runs a failure-to-lodge (FTL) regime that starts the moment a return or statement passes its due date. For a small business it begins at one penalty unit — currently $330 — for every 28-day period the lodgement stays outstanding, capped at five units. Medium and large entities pay more. Separately from that, the general interest charge (GIC) accrues on unpaid tax from the due date onward.
Registered agents are given later dates under the Tax Agent Lodgment Program, so lodging through one buys real time beyond the standard self-preparer deadlines. It is one of the more concrete reasons to hand ongoing compliance to an agent rather than carrying it yourself.
Naletova Advisory handles BAS preparation and lodgement, income tax returns across every structure, FBT returns, PAYG reporting and ASIC annual statements. That can be a single piece of work or a standing arrangement — whichever the business actually needs.
If lodgements have already been missed, we can prepare and lodge what is outstanding and, where it is warranted, deal with the ATO about the resulting liabilities or ask for penalties to be remitted.
Contact us to discuss which obligations apply to your business and what maintaining them involves.
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