“Admin nightmare”: ATO online service outages stretch to nearly a week

The Australian Taxation Office is yet to explain the cause of reported outages across its online portal that have caused almost a week of disruptions, with users of the portal reporting ongoing technical difficulties as late as Tuesday afternoon.

Users first reported tech hiccups on Wednesday last week, disrupting tax agents and accountants as they attempted to file their final 2022 tax returns before the May 15 cut-off date.

Those reports led the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to advise users of its online services, including the dashboard reserved for professional tax agents, that some systems were disrupted.

“We are investigating this as a priority, and our technicians are working to resolve the issue,” an ATO spokesperson told SmartCompany on Tuesday afternoon.

The ATO’s own systems advice and alert system currently shows the Online Services for Agents portal is operating normally.

It recorded a slight drop in availability on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with social media users reporting continual struggles when accessing the online systems.

Still not fixed. Can someone from the ATO actually provide info on what is going on?

— Atomic Nirvana (@AtomicNirvana) May 2, 2023

A warning label remains on the ATO’s Community forum, advising users that the tax office is still investigating the outages and working on a resolution.

The ATO is yet to comment on the cause of the outages. SmartCompany has contacted the tax office for further information.

ATO outages an “admin nightmare” for accountants

The tech disruptions come at an inopportune time for accountants, who are not only putting the final touches on their clients’ remaining 2022 tax returns, but are attempting to gear up for the new financial year.

Greg Mawer, director of Accumulate Accountants & Business Advisors, said the ATO’s online services appeared operational as of Wednesday morning.

However, days of disruptions had rippled through the organisation, he told SmartCompany.

Uncertainty resulted in “staff having to put down jobs and pick up other jobs,” Mawer says.

“And you don’t really know when it’s gonna come back online, so just causes a bit of an admin nightmare to rearrange priorities and staff resourcing.”

Mawer said agents that miss deadlines due to system outages are unlikely to face penalties or general interest charges, unless they are serial late-payers.

Nevertheless, the toll of those delays is still notable.

“It’s just an administrative burden to the firm, adding an extra step to the process which we don’t really need to do, and we’re not going to get paid for,” he said.

More to come.