What happens if you get audited and don't have receipts?

An ATO audit without receipts is stressful, but it is not automatically fatal to your claim. What happens depends on what you claimed, how much, and what alternative evidence you can provide.

The ATO's approach to missing records

If you cannot produce receipts, the ATO will ask for other evidence. Bank statements, credit card statements, photos of items purchased, diary entries, or a statutory declaration can all be used to support a claim — but none of these are as clean as a receipt. The ATO has discretion to accept or reject alternative evidence, and that discretion tends to go against the taxpayer when records are absent.

What is likely to happen

For small claims with no receipt, the ATO may simply disallow the deduction. You will be asked to repay the tax benefit, plus interest calculated from the original due date. If the ATO believes there has been deliberate misrepresentation, penalties can be applied on top — typically 25% to 75% of the tax shortfall, depending on the circumstances.

For larger or repeated issues, the ATO may review more than one year's returns. An audit that finds problems in one year often expands to the previous two or three years.

Can you reconstruct missing receipts?

Sometimes. Contact the merchant — many businesses can reissue receipts from their own records. Your bank can provide statements showing the transaction. If you paid by card, the card issuer may have more detail. For recurring expenses, a quote or invoice from the supplier can support the claim even if the original receipt is gone.

What is not acceptable

Creating a receipt from scratch, altering an existing receipt, or providing false documents to the ATO are forms of fraud. The penalties are severe and can include criminal prosecution. If you made an honest mistake or genuinely lost records, admit it and work with the ATO — they respond poorly to fabrication and well to transparency.

How to make sure this doesn't happen

Keep every receipt digitally. A receipt app like rct-keep stores a permanent, timestamped copy from the moment you photograph or forward it — no fading, no loss, no reconstruction needed. The cost of setting up the habit is about ten seconds per receipt.