Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a correction to the record.

Leave granted.

During the committee phase of the last bill, I said that grandfathered companies—those exempt private companies—still had to lodge their financial returns with ASIC. That is not entirely true. All large proprietary companies have to prepare audited accounts in accordance with accounting standards. Those exempted companies don't have to give those audited accounts to ASIC, but ASIC, of course, is not the taxing agency. They do have to pay appropriate taxes, and the ATO has the option to audit those companies if it doesn't believe that the appropriate amount of taxes has been paid. In fact, no proprietary company lodges accounts with the ATO, and it really doesn't matter what size the company is, but the ATO always has the option to audit and tax further, if appropriate.