Tax office hands Irish-domiciled Accenture $170m in contracts this year


Denham Sadler
National Affairs Editor

The Tax Office has awarded the Irish-domiciled Accenture more than $170 million in contracts in this calendar year, with the professional services giant landing more than $8 million in this week alone.

Accenture has become the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) tech contractor of choice of late. The company, which is domiciled in Ireland, has been awarded 14 contracts with the ATO in 2021 worth a total of more than $170 million.

This includes work on several of the ATO’s key projects, including its digital identity program and superannuation piece of work.

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Money, money, money

The ATO this week handed Accenture a $4.2 million contract, running for 12 months, for the “provision of IT vendor arrangements”. It also awarded the same company a $3.9 million contract with the same title, also running for a year from October.

A spokesperson for the ATO told InnovationAus that the first contract relates to work “supporting the indirect tax program of work”, while the latter is for performance testing services.

Accenture was selected for the work after a request for quote was given to a number of suppliers on an existing ATO panel.

“For each contract the ATO conducted a competitive process, issuing requests for quotes to multiple suppliers using an existing panel arrangement,” the ATO spokesperson said.

“Each contract was entered into after a competitive process and on the basis that it represented value for money. The ATO will actively manage each contract to ensure this value is realised.”

Accenture was incorporated in Ireland in 2009 after it had previously been domiciled in Bermuda. In the 2017-18 financial year, Accenture’s Australian arm had a total income of $2.1 billion, with a taxable income of $110 million. On this, the company paid $32 million in tax.

Accenture has landed a number of lucrative contracts from the ATO this year for a range of different projects.

Last week the company was awarded a $31.5 million contract extension over just three months for its work consolidating a number of business registries for the tax office. That contract is now worth a total of $110 million.

The ATO is also paying Accenture $54 million to June next year for work on its digital identity play, and $35 million over 12 months for oversight of its online platform.

Accenture has also landed a $28 million deal for IT work on the government’s superannuation change program over five months, and $8 million for work on the single touch payroll.

It comes off a strong 2020 for Accenture too, with the pandemic year seeing the company increase its overall government work by 15 per cent.

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