Using unincorporated ABN in commerce

[Eclaire]

Hello. I posed questions about this on the Discord channel, but so far haven’t heard from other with personal experience, so I’m putting it on here.

Background: I had a sole-trader ABN and operated my little business that way. It was in my name. When I unincorporated my ABN, I thought I followed the instructions correctly and put in the sole-trader number expecting it to be changed to an unincorporated entity. Instead I ended up with a new ABN for the unincorporated name. I asked Keith about this and he suggested I continue using my old ABN for my business for now. That’s all good, and I’m fine with that. I see it as a bridge until I can set up different structures. However, short-term I still need to continue to operate that business for income, which I still need.

So, I’m trying to understand how the system works and get an overall picture so that I may work things out and see what it most appropriate to me and my situation.

I’m wondering if there is any reason I can’t use my unincorporated ABN on my invoices now, given that if I had done it correctly, that would have been the only one I had.

Working through it logically, if it’s an unincorporated entity, I wouldn’t be doing a tax return, and therefore would have to change my invoices to “Invoice” and not “tax invoice”. Which, I had inadvertently done already.

Is there anyone else in this situation?
Did others purposefully keep their old business ABNs to continue using, while unincorporated their name? Or did they end up with just the one unincorporated ABN and now use it for their business?

The second part to my question is about using the system to get out of the system. We create this unincorporated ABN in their computer system and we register the name in their computer system.
I know people whose ABN was cancelled due to inactivity. According to this link https://lawpath.com.au/blog/why-was-my-abn-cancelled it’s the ATO who cancels it if it deems there is no business activity.

I’m assuming an unincorporated ABN doesn’t make tax returns, so could it therefore be cancelled eventually? Or is it outside of all of that because it’s unincorporated?
Is there something else that could be done to regularly “feed the system” and keep it active?

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