TPAR 2026: What businesses need to report by 28 August

A Taxable payments annual report (TPAR) is a report some businesses lodge with the ATO setting out the payments they made to contractors during the financial year.

The ATO uses that information to check that contractors are reporting the income they have been paid. It is also the data behind contractor income pre-fill, where reported payments can appear in a contractor's own tax return.

In other words, the report is not about your tax position. It is about what your business paid other businesses.

TPAR reporting applies to businesses that made payments to contractors for relevant services in these industries:

• building and construction services
• cleaning services
• courier services
• road freight services
• information technology (IT) services
• security, investigation or surveillance services

Being in or near one of those sectors does not automatically create an obligation, and the test is not the same across all of them.

For cleaning, courier, road freight, IT, and security, investigation or surveillance services, the general test is whether payments received for those services make up 10% or more of the business's GST turnover, and whether the business paid contractors to provide those services on its behalf.

Building and construction has its own tests, which look at whether the business is primarily in the building and construction industry, holds an ABN and paid contractors for building and construction services.

Government entities have separate reporting requirements. If your situation sits near the line, it is worth confirming the position rather than assuming either way.

For each contractor paid during the year, the report generally includes:

• their ABN
• their name (business or individual)
• their address
• the gross amount paid for the year, including GST
• the GST included in that amount
• any tax withheld where an ABN was not quoted

The report is concerned with payments actually made between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026. An invoice entered in your accounting software in June but paid in July belongs in next year's report, and an unpaid invoice at 30 June is not reported at all.

Wages paid to employees are not reported through a TPAR. Those amounts are dealt with through Single Touch Payroll, so they should not appear in the contractor report.

TPARs for the year ended 30 June 2026 are generally due by 28 August 2026.

That date sits close to other August obligations, so it is worth checking early rather than in the last week — particularly if the contractor list needs cleaning up before it can be lodged.

There are three practical pathways.

Most supported accounting software can produce a TPAR from the contractor payments already recorded, and many packages can lodge it directly to the ATO. The report is only as good as the underlying data, so it still needs reviewing before it goes anywhere.

Businesses can lodge through Online services for business, and sole traders can lodge through the ATO's online services for individuals and sole traders using myGov.

A registered tax or BAS agent can prepare and lodge the report on your behalf. If you would prefer your accountant to review and lodge the TPAR, Wakefield Pacific can assist with the reporting process and check the contractor information before lodgment.

Most TPAR problems come from the underlying records rather than the lodgment itself. A short review before lodging usually catches them.

**Contractor ABNs.** Check that each contractor's ABN is present and correct. Where an ABN was not quoted and tax was withheld, that amount needs to be reported.

**Dates actually paid.** Confirm the report reflects payments made during the year, not invoices dated in the year but paid later.

**GST.** Check that the GST component reported matches what was actually charged. Contractors who are not registered for GST should not show a GST amount.

**Employees included by mistake.** Occasionally a worker paid through payroll also appears as a supplier. Only contractor payments belong in the report.

**Missing contractors.** Software reports rely on how suppliers were set up. A contractor coded to a general expense account can be left out entirely.

**Materials-only purchases.** Where a payment relates only to materials and no relevant services were provided, it generally sits outside the report. Where labour and materials are supplied together, the whole payment is usually reported.

A lodged TPAR can be amended. If you find an incorrect amount, a wrong ABN or a contractor who should not have been included, correct it rather than leaving information you know is wrong on the record.

This matters more than it used to. The ATO now uses TPAR information to match and, in some cases, pre-fill contractor income, so an error in your report can show up in someone else's tax return.

Where a TPAR is required and is lodged late, the ATO may apply a failure to lodge penalty. The amount depends on the size of the entity, how long the report is overdue and the circumstances involved.

If the ATO expects a TPAR from your business but you have worked out there is no obligation for the year, a TPAR non-lodgment advice can be submitted so the ATO knows the report is not coming. That does not apply to every business that doesn't lodge — it is relevant where the ATO is expecting one.

Check who you paid and whether the payment needs to be reported. Run the contractor report out of your accounting software, look at it properly, and fix the data before 28 August rather than after.

If the position isn't clear — or the report doesn't look like the year you actually had — that's a conversation worth having. You can see how we work or read more about our tax and accounting services.