myGov has become a target for criticism as certain faults are creating significant pain for accounting practices like Paris Financial and in turn, for our clients.
One of the main issues we find with the system is that once someone registers for myGov, all ATO communication is then sent to their myGov inbox by default. This myGov inbox is often unmonitored by our clients as life or kids or fun stuff takes preference.
The ATO don’t care and keep sending notice after notice to the inbox until they finally call us or the client out of the blue – usually to chase up an overdue payment or a fine that has been overlooked as all previous notices have gone to the myGov inbox.
Most of the time it’s the first time we or the client has heard anything about it from the ATO.
It means that once myGov is enabled we as accountants and advisors, lose visibility of all communication and notifications relating to our clients’ tax affairs.
The ATO admitted in late 2016 it didn’t work closely enough with accountants before rolling out myGov, and has been assuring a fix since then.
The ATO have noted that they are doing what they can to solve the issue. In June, they will introduce a functionality called ‘preferencing’ which should enable accountants like us to once again be notified about any relevant information that related you our clients affairs.
We hope that this functionality will enable us to work with our clients and decide what comes to us and what goes to our clients directly. This should allow us to be informed about things relevant to our clients on a timely manner and to then get back to what we do best – advising and assisting our clients.
