January 7, 2021
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) says it is considering appealing a ruling by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) that gave access to JobKeeper payments to a business owner who was previously deemed ineligible for the wage subsidies.
One of the eligibility requirements for the JobKeeper program is for business operators to have an Australian Business Number (ABN) as of March 12, 2020, and in this case, the ATO initially said sole trader Jeremy Apted was not eligible for the wage subsidies as his ABN was not active at this time.
However, in a decision handed down in December, the AAT found Apted did in fact meet the JobKeeper eligibility criteria of having an ABN on March 12, 2020, because the Australian Business Registry had reactivated an old ABN and backdated the reactivation to before March 12.