Gazette notice: Commissioner of Taxation – Notice of a crypto asset data-matching program - 26 April 2024

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will acquire account identification and transaction data from crypto designated service providers for the 2023-24 financial year through to the 2025-26 financial year inclusively.

The data items include:

• client identification details (names, addresses, date of birth, phone numbers, social media account and email addresses)
• transaction details (bank account details, wallet addresses, transaction dates, transaction time, transaction type, deposits, withdrawals, transaction quantities and coin type).

We estimate that records relating to approximately 700,000 to 1,200,000 individuals and entities will be obtained each financial year.

The data will be acquired and matched to ATO systems to identify and treat clients who failed to report a disposal of crypto assets in their income tax return. The matching process strengthens our ability to develop tailored treatments for clients who may not be meeting their obligations. These may include registration, lodgment, reporting and payment obligations.

The objectives of this program are to:

• promote voluntary compliance by communicating how we use external data with our own to help encourage taxpayers to comply with their tax and superannuation obligations.
• identify and educate those individuals and businesses that may be failing to meet their registration and/or lodgment obligations and assist them to comply.
• gain insights from the data that may help to develop and implement treatment strategies to improve voluntary compliance; this may include educational or compliance activities as appropriate.
• gain insights from the data to increase our understanding of the behaviours and compliance profiles of individuals and businesses that have bought, sold, or accepted payment via crypto assets.
• help ensure individuals and businesses that trade or accept crypto assets as payment are fulfilling their tax lodgment, reporting and payment obligations.

A document describing this program is available at ato.gov.au/Data-matching protocols.

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 of data matching as an administrative tool in a way that:

• complies with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act)
• is consistent with good privacy practice.

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