The ATO website is prone to setbacks just like any other website or application or an electronic device. After all the ATO website is all code running over computer servers over the internet. ATO’s services are affected by variation across any of these several aspects of delivery. Anything ranging from hacking to crashing of servers under tremendous user load can cause the ATO website to crash. Other than sudden incidents there are planned downtimes by the ATO to maintain and upgrade its website services. Infact the ATO provides a calendar of planned maintenance on its page here. This can help you to plan your online engagement with the ATO website relatively trouble free.

But what about unplanned and surprise downtimes of the ATO like the one that started a few days ago. Scores of Australian small business owners and accountants trying to do BAS lodgement or download an official document found themselves shut out of the ATO website services with a service down notification page. This has been a major Australian Tax Office website outage. Read on to prepare yourself for any scenario because neither is this the first time nor it will be the last time the ATO website will face an unplanned downtime.

What steps to take to avoid ATO website outage blues

Do not wait till the last moment

Do not delay your BAS lodgement till the eleventh hour. Yes. The ATO website has a load limit that it can serve at any given time. Any and all major websites with heavy traffic have their limits before they can crash under load. Think Amazon, The Iconic, Facebook, Twitter: all these high traffic websites constantly face the possibility of both a minor or a major downtimes due to a spike in visitor count.

Therefore knowing that every website can take only so much load it is upon us to plan work on ATO website ahead of the deadline or at the very least stagger our work over a few days or weekends. This will reduce the time spent on the ATO website on a given day and therefore help the ATO website to keep functioning smoothly. And keep users like us calm and happy.

Download and keep popular ATO forms

The Australian Tax Office also accepts filled documents submitted via email. Though a last resort for most Australians it is still an option that you may consider depending on your circumstances. You may download these forms from the ATO website section titled Consolidated list of approved forms by tax topic. This page provides a comprehensive list of topics with links to download relevant forms and documents to your computer.

Australian Business Number (ABN) Business Activity Statements (BAS) Capital Gains Tax (CGT) Consolidations Country-by-Country Reporting Customs (under delegation) Employee Share Schemes Excise Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) Foreign Resident Capital Gains Withholding Fuel Tax Credits Goods and Services Tax (GST) Importations Income Tax JobKeeper JobMaker Instalment Activity Statement

Luxury Car Tax Non-commercial Business Losses Not-for-Profit Objections Pay As You Go Withholding (PAYGW) Pay As You Go Instalments (PAYGI) Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Product Stewardship for Oil Program Rulings Stapled Structures Superannuation Tax File Number (TFN) Thirty Party Reporting TFN Withholding for Closely Held Trusts Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) Miscellaneous

You may also find the most popular ATO forms on this page for downloading.

You may lodge your tax returns via post mail by sending your package to:

Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 9845
[insert the name and postcode of your capital city]

You can read more about sending your tax documents via post mail on this page.

Take a screenshot of ATO website outage with visible system clock and date on your computer

If you are unable to successfully submit your tax return to the ATO in time due to outage of the website then you may be able to avoid penalty if you can prove that the delay is due to unavailability of the ATO website. A very common and effective way to do it is to take a screen shot of the ATO website showing the out of service page. Launch the clock and calendar app on your computer to capture these time stamps along with the ATO website page showing the website down message. Or simply hover your mouse cursor over the system tray to reveal the clock and date display to capture in the screenshot.

Later after successfully submitting your tax returns on the ATO website you may also send the screenshot of the ATO website out of service page to avoid any late submission penalty.

Hire an efficient and cost competitive Bookkeeper and Tax Consultant in Sydney

The best decision you could make as a small business owner or a very busy employee would be to hire a competent and affordable tax consultant in Sydney to take care of all your tax return needs. As a small business keeper your main objective is to focus on growing your business. The last thing you would want is a diversion like the ATO website outage that would take hours and days from your productive time that you could have spent to attend to clients and grow your business. By some estimates small business owners spend up to 30 days annually only in bookkeeping and tax returns. When you hire Sproutstone Accounting you immediately save up to 50% of your inhouse accounting costs. And you reclaim those 30 days of your days working as an inhouse accountant to spend on your business growth and vacation with your family. To know more about our bookkeeping and accounting packages click on the button below. Or contact us for an obligation free consultation.