BAS basics

Tips on filling out the form

If you're like most business operators, you'll be too flat out running the business and focusing on the bottom line to give much thought to some bureaucrat's demands. But the taxman can't be ignored, and has become all the more persistent since many of us have become virtual tax collectors because of the goods and services tax.

One by-product of GST is the pervasive business activity statement (BAS). The BAS combines the reporting of a few taxes into one document, so that businesses can take care of each throughout the financial year by reporting and paying instalments at regular intervals. The tax obligations dealt with on your activity statement include PAYG instalments, fringe benefits tax (FBT), PAYG withholding amounts for employees, fuel tax credits and any GST transactions (what you've paid out and what you've taken in).

Your BAS document should arrive in the mail a couple of weeks before it's due, and will be tailored to your situation depending on information the Tax Office has from when you registered your business for all the essentials (ABN, PAYG withholding, GST and so on), or according to past statements depending on which options you had filled in (if any fringe benefits tax fields were entered into your activity statement for example, or luxury car tax or fuel tax credit items).

For most small businesses, the BAS is a quarterly chore, but it can be foisted on you every month if you're making a lot of money, or if not making much at all then possibly only once a year (see here for details of the frequency for lodging BAS). Quarterly statement due dates are February 28, and the same day of April, July and October (or the next business day if on a weekend or public holiday). Monthly statements are due on day 21 of the month after the reporting period, and the due date for the annual statement is the earlier of whenever your income tax return is due, or February 28.

The taxes you need to report on in your BAS include withholding amounts for staff (PAYG withholding), instalments for your business's tax (PAYG instalments), FBT instalments, fuel tax credits, and luxury car and wine equalisation taxes if applicable. (FBT also needs its own annual return.) Of course, not all of these will apply to every business.

But a key item covered on your activity statement will be the tax that started this periodically recurring BAS burden – goods and services tax.

If you collect more tax on the government's behalf through your sales (via the GST portions of your invoices) than you paid out when buying supplies for your business (which would accumulate GST credits), then you will end up with a tax liability. If you made more purchases in the quarter, and made fewer sales, a refund should result.

Tips on filling out the form
With so many BAS forms to get through, the Tax Office has to use scanning technology to process them, so a few tips on filling out the document may be handy.

Complete only the labels where you have something to report (see a sample of a quarterly form here) and leave other labels blank. Enter whole dollar amounts and don't include cents, but also don't use a dollar symbol ($) or any other symbol, like minus, plus or slash (-, +, /). At the end of each section, transfer the amounts to the summary section. Use a black pen, and if you make a mistake you can use whiteout, although tape whiteout is better for the scanner. Or better yet request a new form because it will have pre-printed details.

Also, here's a GST calculation worksheet for BAS.

Keep a copy of the completed BAS, and all the documentary evidence for the entries on it. You can lodge your BAS online, through your accountant or bookkeeper, post it or even by telephone if it's straightforward (see here for all the details, such as links for online lodging, postal addresses or phone numbers). There are prescribed penalties for not lodging on time, although there is some scope for extra time if lodging online.

Filling in and lodging your BAS is certainly an added chore, but the pain can be minimised if you keep good records and are organised so that these tax obligations can be seen to when they crop up.

Reviewed August 1, 2012

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