Gazette notice: Commissioner of Taxation – Notice of a government payments program data-matching program 18 October 2024

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will acquire government payments data from government entities who administer government programs for 2023–24 to 2025–26 financial years.

The data items include:

• service provider identification details (names, addresses, phone numbers, email, dates of birth, service type, ABN, ACN)
• payment transaction details (service provider ID, name of service, type of service linked to program, value of payments received for the financial year, count and type of claim, withholding and re-credit amount).

We estimate that records relating to approximately 60,000 service providers will be obtained each financial year.

It is expected, within the 60,000 service providers approximately 9,000 individuals each financial year will be included. The remainder will consist of companies, partnerships, trusts and government entities.

For this data-matching program, we will match data on government payments made to service providers against ATO records.

The data collected under this program will be used to:

• identify and address tax and super risks, trends and non-compliance by service providers receiving government payments for delivering services
• support government entities by providing feedback at an aggregate agency and/or program level and where allowed by legislation at an individual provider level
• Inform methodologies by which we select taxpayers for engagement activities
• enhance data currently received from government entities through the Taxable Payments Annual Report.

The objectives of our government payments program data-matching program are to:

• obtain reliable data about the service providers receiving government payments to identify and assess risks and trends of tax non-compliance within the service provider population
• enable the ATO to work with service providers and government entities to get a better understanding of the environment and identify opportunities to improve system integrity
• identify and educate service providers that may be operating outside of the tax system and failing to meet their registration, lodgment, reporting and/or payment obligations and assist them to comply
• promote voluntary compliance and strengthen community confidence in the integrity of the tax and superannuation systems
• gain insights to shape future treatment strategies, which may include educational or compliance activities
• support government entities in their understanding of any identified tax and super risks associated with the specific programs being examined.

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 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/privacy.