Did you know that last year the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) cross referenced the information provided in individual income tax returns with over 600 million transactions provided by third parties?

This cross referencing was used to identify if income or capital gains had been omitted from income tax returns, and to ensure offsets were claimed correctly and exemptions from surcharges were correctly applied.

In doing so they contacted almost 400,000 taxpayers who appeared to have discrepancies between the information they reported and that of the third parties – and in most cases the result required a repayment of money to the ATO and the cause was the taxpayer not providing ALL of their information to their tax agent…

With the advances of technology and increased reporting requirements, the amount of data being matched by the ATO is going to rise – their focus is extending beyond omitted interest and employment income to areas including capital gains on the sale of shares and property and employment related foreign source income.

I hope that by hi-lighting this process, you will all appreciate the importance of good record keeping, and if you feel you may be lacking in this area…now is the time to learn more…

Regards