The Income ABN Holders Forget to Declare (And the ATO Already Knows About)

One of the most common surprises for ABN holders isn’t a tax bill — it’s a letter or notification that starts with, “We have information that doesn’t match your return.”

Most people don’t set out to hide income. The issue is that ABN income doesn’t always feel like “income” in the traditional sense, especially when it comes from multiple sources or arrives irregularly.

ABN holders often focus on invoices they issued, but overlook payments that don’t look like sales. Platform payments, reimbursements, partial payments, retained fees, or income paid after commissions can all blur together. If it hits your bank account as business income, the ATO generally expects to see it reflected somewhere in your return.

What catches people out is that the ATO doesn’t rely on your records alone. Banks, payment processors, platforms, and government agencies all report data. That means the ATO can already see deposits, gross receipts, and third-party income streams — even when you’ve forgotten about them.

Another blind spot is income that bypasses your main business account. Payments received into a personal account, one-off cash transfers, or funds collected through apps can be easy to forget when tax time rolls around. From the ATO’s perspective, account type doesn’t matter — income is income if it relates to business activity.

Some ABN holders assume that small amounts won’t matter. In reality, mismatches matter more than totals. A return that doesn’t reconcile with external data is more likely to be reviewed than one that reports everything accurately, even if the income is modest.

There’s also confusion around timing. Income earned during the financial year is assessable, even if you planned to deal with it later. Leaving income out because it arrived late, felt uncertain, or was “just this once” is a common way errors creep in.

The real issue isn’t how much you earned — it’s whether your return tells the same story as the data the ATO already has access to. When those stories don’t line up, that’s when questions follow.

ABN tax problems rarely come from one big mistake. They usually come from small omissions repeated across a year.

If you’re earning income under an ABN, the safest approach is to assume the ATO already knows more than you think — and make sure your return reflects the full picture.

Learn how self-employed tax returns work here:
https://www.gotax.com.au/self-employed-tax-return