Australian Company Directors Personal Liability to the ATO In June changes were made to make directors personally liable for unpaid PAYG and super (and to catch their families and wider circles of acquaintances – called ASSOCIATES in the tax legislation). The changes are retrospective. Directors are now automatically personally liable for unreported unpaid PAYG and super. They weren’t liable before these changes. Director penalty notices used to be issued for unpaid PAYG only. They will still be issued but all they do is to enable the ATO to recover these tax debts from you personally. They no longer operate to let you avoid personal liability. Now newly appointed directors are personally liable for all PAYG and super where the company to which they are appointed has unreported unpaid PAYG and super – even if incurred long before you were appointed. Do you really want to become a director of an existing company? The answer is “NO”. Mothers, fathers, children and many others who work for a company of which you are a director will be exposed to losing money that they are entitled to from the company to the ATO for unreported and unpaid PAYG and super. Paul Fordyce, an expert in this area of law, has said that it is vital that all company directors make sure that they have taken expert advice on the proper steps to ensure that their company, their business, their friends and family and themselves are not caught with personal liability for any company that they are directors of. 119 Auguyst 2012