Notice of a Data Matching Programme

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) visa holders’ data matching program was developed to assist the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to effectively detect, and deal with compliance risks within the visa holding population. DIBP will provide the Australian Tax Office (ATO) with information like names, addresses and other details of visa holders, their sponsors and migration agents, for the financial years of 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.

The purpose of this data matching program is to ensure that taxpayers are correctly meeting their taxation obligations. These obligations include registration, lodgement, reporting and payment responsibilities.

Data from DIBP will be used in ATO risk detection models to select populations for administrative action relating to tax return integrity, income tax and goods and services tax non-compliance and fraud. This represents the use of data in a smarter way to improve decisions, services and compliance.

It is estimated that records relating to approximately 1,000,000 individuals will be provided. These records will be electronically matched by the ATO with certain sections of their data holdings to identify non-compliance with registration, lodgement, reporting and payment obligations under taxation laws.

References:

www.ato.gov.au/dmprotocols

http://www.border.gov.au/about/access-accountability/plans-policies-charters/policies/privacy