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Gearing up for the New Tax System with TCR 2000

With 1 July rapidly approaching, similar to organisations across the nation, Councils are getting ready for the New Tax System (NTS). It is quite clear that the NTS is a whole of business issue, with across organisational awareness of the new requirements vital.

Councils need to have an implementation plan in place, including the necessary software to meet their compliance reporting needs. Speaking in Melbourne at Computron Software's April Users Conference, Danny Wain, Finance Coordinator with Whitehorse City Council, said Council purchased Computron's Tax Compliance and Reporting, TCR 2000, in late February.

"TCR 2000 is up and running as part of our training program," he said. "We still have more testing to verify data, but already it is giving us the information we want." Whitehorse City Council has an annual budget of $72 million. It is estimated that $20 million of revenue will incur GST.

As one of Victoria's largest Councils, under program budgeting Whitehorse has some 500 income lines and 3,000 active accounts. Around 140 staff are able to create a purchase order. "Our choice is to post gross to income and expense accounts and calculate one-eleventh at the end of a period," Danny Wain said.

"TCR 2000 lets you post gross to programs but at the same time hive off tax amounts. "It provides end of month reports, posts input credits and GST remitted, and most importantly, it electronically prepares your Business Activity Statement, calculation sheets and gives you the ability to lodge it with the ATO."

He said the TCR 2000 is a flexible product that can be used with any software system, and it is easy to change to meet any future changes to the Business Activity Statement, the GST rate or should differential rates be introduced. "With TCR 2000 we have been able to gear up for the New Tax System without any increase in staffing levels," he said.

For further information contact Danny Wain at Whitehorse City Council, telephone (03) 9262 6313 or Gilly Hen-Boisen at Computron Software on (02) 9955 9944

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