The complainant is an 81-year-old taxpayer who operated a travel agency with his wife. The complainant had not enrolled for JobKeeper until July 2020 as he had initially been unaware that JobKeeper payments were available to support businesses without employees.  

But for his late enrolment, the complainant had satisfied all other eligibility criteria for JobKeeper.  

When he approached the ATO for an extension of time to enrol (and to backdate relevant JobKeeper payments), the ATO refused on the basis that the business had not been affected by ‘exceptional circumstances’ to warrant the grant of extension of time. As a result, the ATO would only commence making JobKeeper payments to the complainant from July 2020 onwards.  

Following our investigation, the IGTO found that the ATO had applied a narrow test when deciding whether or not to grant an extension of time. The IGTO observed that the relevant test, as set out in the ATO’s practice statement PSLA 2011/15 (the PSLA), was whether it would be ‘fair and reasonable’ to grant an extension of time having regard to the factors listed in paragraphs 45 and 46 of the PSLA and not the subset of ‘exceptional circumstances’ listed in paragraphs 47 and 48 of the PSLA.  

As a result of the IGTO investigation, the ATO reconsidered the complainant’s case and reversed its initial decision and allowed the backdating of JobKeeper payments to the complainant. The IGTO noticed a pattern in similar complaint cases managed by our office and published a report setting out our findings in detail. The full IGTO report containing the ATO’s formal response is available on our website.