Gazette notice: Commissioner of Taxation – Notice of a data-matching program

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will access data from the Department of Home Affairs on passenger movements during the 2016–17 to 2022–23 financial years.

The data accessed will be electronically matched with certain sections of ATO data holdings to identify taxpayers that can be provided with tailored information to help them meet their tax and superannuation obligations, or to ensure compliance with taxation and superannuation laws.

Data items include:

■          full Name

■          personal Identifier (PID)

■          date of birth

■          gender

■          arrival Date

■          departure Date

■          passport Information

■          status types (visa status, residency, lawful, Australian citizen)

We estimate that records relating to approximately 670,000 individuals will be obtained each financial year.

The objectives of this data-matching program are to:

■          promote voluntary compliance and increase community confidence in the integrity of the tax and superannuation systems

■          improve knowledge of the overall level of identity and residency compliance risks including registration, lodgment, reporting and payment obligations

■          gain insights from the data to help develop and implement administrative strategies to improve voluntary compliance, which may include educational or compliance activities

■          identify ineligible tax and superannuation claims

■          refine existing risk detection models and treatment systems to identify and educate individuals and businesses who may be failing to meet their registration, lodgment and payment obligations and help them comply

■          identify potentially new or emerging non-compliance and entities controlling or exploiting those methodologies.

A document describing this program is available at ato.gov.au/dmprotocols.

This program follows the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s Guidelines on data matching in Australian Government administration (2014) (the guidelines). The guidelines include standards for the use data-matching as an administrative tool in a way that complies with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and are consistent with good privacy practice.

A full copy of the ATO’s privacy policy can be accessed at ato.gov.au/privacy.