Accenture wins ATO tech contracts worth $70m

Accenture has landed contracts with the tax office worth more than $70 million, including one which will see the Irish-domiciled multinational consultancy firm paid more than $5.5 million per month for the rest of the year.

Accenture has been the IT contractor of choice for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) of late, winning lucrative work on its digital identity scheme which saw it being paid $2.5 million per month across the first half of 2021, and landing more than $80 million in work late last year.

In the space of just three days, contracts worth more than $60 million between Accenture and the ATO were posted publicly, covering the next 12 months.

Included in these are a deal worth $35 million over 12 months for work on the ATO’s online platform, and another valued at more than $28 million for IT services on the government’s ongoing superannuation change program, running for just five months.

Accenture will be paid $5.6 million per month for the last five months of the year under an ATO contract for IT services in relation to the government’s superannuation change agenda, worth a total of $28 million.

The reforms, announced in last year’s budget and passed by Parliament earlier this year, include a new superannuation comparison tool which was launched in July.

The largest contract is for $34.8 million, covering the “delivering of services to support and enhance the ATO Online Platform and systems that enable the community to access a large range of tax and superannuation information and services”, running for all of the 2021-22 financial year.

Another contract revealed the ATO will also pay Accenture more than $8 million from 1 August to 30 September next year for the “provision of the single touch payroll program”.

The single touch payroll requires employers to report workers’ payroll information each time they are paid through eligible software, including salaries and wages, pay as you go withholding and superannuation.

Most concessions given to businesses since the program launched in 2019 came to an end at the start of this financial year. Phase two of the program will kick off at the start of next year and will see more information be required from employers.

The ATO is currently working with the companies providing software for the program on these changes, and Accenture’s work likely relates to this.

A spokesperson for the ATO declined to reveal how many Accenture staff members will be working on each program, but said measures are in place to ensure there is value for money.

“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,” the ATO spokesperson told InnovationAus.

The ATO also awarded Accenture a $12 million contract covering the first six months of the year for a “digital identity piece of work”. The consultancy also won two contracts, each worth $40 million, with the ATO towards the end of last year, for computer services in relation to the single touch payroll, and for “ITX / ITAPS performance testing piece of work”.

While the bulk of its government work has come from the ATO, Accenture has also won some prominent contracts with other departments.

Late last year Accenture was appointed as the data lead for the vaccine rollout, with the Department of Health dishing out contracts worth $20 million for the delivery of software and data.

It’s also been reported that Accenture won the contract to build a permissions capability for the Department of Home Affairs to initially handle visa processing, although this is yet to be confirmed or made public.

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