ATO accessing car registration data

Interesting article.

The Australian Tax Office has announced it will access vehicle purchasing data by state in an effort to potentially catch out tax-evading individuals and businesses.

This data will include the names, addresses, ABNs or company numbers for sole traders and business owners, as well as the sale price of their vehicles, the vehicle's garage address, the make and model and whether or not the buyer received a stamp duty exemption – among other

Accirding to the article ATO will then cross-check the registration data with its internal data holdings to determine whether taxpayers are complying with their taxation or superannuation obligations.' For example,the owner of a new Ferrari with no reportable income or a licenced dealer reporting unusually low luxury car tax', Ms Kasapidis Senior Manager of Tax Policy at CPA Australia, said.

The move also has potential ramifications for business owners who have accessed the government's recently-expanded instant asset write-off scheme,

"The instant asset write-off is subject to value thresholds, which for cars is $57,581 for the 2019-20 income year. Registry data will help the ATO identify people who may have over-claimed," Ms Kasapidis said.

"Other examples which could raise a red flag include buying the family car through a company or purchasing a new car each year.

Vehicle registrations under scrutiny in new ATO move to catch tax evaders | CarAdvice

All honesty maybe I am naive, but I thought that ATO already had automatically access in this type of data.

 

Exactly, I would as well. To run thorough analytics on this data wouldn't take a professional DA team more than a couple of weeks to find anomalies.

 

Data is extremely difficult to get in Australia due out our strict data laws. Even between departments it's not easy.

 

Good! Friend is working in Bankstown and says there's so many more Merc & BMWs there compared to any other part of Sydney they've been in, I wonder why

 

Another friend works in the funeral industry and is amazed at the number of people that plonk down $20-50K cash

 

I bet they get up after being plonked down. Not in that industry anyway lol.

 

And all that money came from the person who croaked it

 

You can count the money on the slab. Use a heel as a dead weight so the money don't blow away

 

This is always been happening
ATO has a lot of power in relation to accessing information

I guess now data will be shared without having a particular reason

But I doubt they will care about someone on no income with a Ferrari.

What usually happens is someone with no income gets picked up for another reason and then the Ferrari gets questioned

 

The ATO access a substantial amount of "data" which is used for a large number of matching issues which vary and can become a "project" at times. The way they access this is through existing reporting obligations (eg interest and dividends) as well as through notices which require ceratin information and these are issued from time to time for a variety of matters. There is no obligation on the parties issued with notices to disclose. The data is often gathered in "bulk" from from state governments as they have data integrity (eg vehicle rego transactions) and also under agreements concerning GST. GST is a Commonwealth tax which is paid to the states so it's in their interests to assist with tax collection. The states also get shared anonomyised data given to them eg Property addresses which are rented. Not who owns them. (They have that data available) The ATO already receive substantial transactional and account specific customer data from banks which "can be" viewed in real time by certain officers. eg They can see the morning balance in an account and issue a notice for siezure of that specific sum. In minutes the account will have a $0.00 balance.

At anytime the ATO can also request specific data eg Specific taxpayers. The ATO also have other powers that stun people when they use them:
- enter premises without a warrant. They will use these powers carefully and with suitable consideration for the potential breach of law. Entry to a home is usually with Police given the seriousness of potential offences but doesnt have to be.
- access and take property (usually information, records and IT hardware)
- access third party premises eg lawyers, accountants and others and take or access property
- interview and take evidence (the person has a right to refuse but needs legal advice as it comes with a catch that you may be unable to later rely on something you didnt tell them)
- take funds from bank accounts eg balance and/or further deposits
- detain and/or prevent departure at borders
- garnishee or size Australian money
- impose certain tax debts on another person (eg Director Penalty Notices)
- assess tax on income more than once (subject to final determiantion) and apply penalties and interest to all forms of debt whether real or contingent
- access telephone and IT data incl metadata, phone and email intercepts and more. These are generally obtained under court orders
- litigate through the Commonwealth Socitor General and other means but not be sued. Taxpayers are usually only able to appeal. The ATO can lose cases and "full" costs may be awarded but ACTUAL costs wont usually be paid.

The ATO also have migrated several data centres in 2020 to more secure locations after it became known that some ownership of its former "Global Switch" datacentres had passed to a Chinese owner.

 

Hi Paul and thanks for your comprehensive response.

I knew that ATO have large powers to access a different type of data, but I had no idea that they have even more powers than police

Like the old Al Capone story... Follow the money. Looks like the laws in Australia makes that easier path to catch criminals than good old police work.

 

How are they going to match data without a TFN?

Sounds like scare mongering.

If they are so good, answer this question.... Why is the black economy worth billions and billions of dollars. Not just here in Australia, but every where.

I'll tell you why. It's because it doesn't matter what system or tactic is used eg TFN, PPS, RPS, GST etc etc they can't beat it ie the black economy. All it does is create extra work for businesses which accountants love.

Now I'm going to go out to buy a beef kebab with L,T, Cheese and BBQ sauce as I'm feeling a bit peckish. I'll be paying cash and I bet that money won't be divided between the shopkeeper and the govt.

 

1) Probabilistic matching based on other attributes.
2) Probabilistic matching builds strong case for warrant.
3) Warrant allows for disclosure of PII.
4) PII allows for forensic level matching.

EDIT: Just a guess, but that's how I'd do it.

 

Abn on a tax invoice. Name. Address. Drivers license used when buying a car. Acn. Fingerprint and ID on RMS forms. Bank details or card details. Identifiers for 100 pt ID. The rego is where the data integrity fails. The rms camera ? Dealer copies. Etc.

Cash cant buy a car. Not a 600k Ferrari. Not without no transaction for the dealer. Its a focus of the project. Follow the money....

Criminals tend to replicate. And with police and rms data not hard to track eg toll tags plates parking etc. Cameras.

 

Sounds like James Bond stuff.

Look at the big picture.....the black economy is worth billions. Catching a few crims buying up Ferraris is nothing.

 

Still got to try. Say the problem is 10% (for example). If you signal to the economy you've just given up, then it doesn't just go from 10% to 15%...it would rocket to like 40%. The problem would be off the charts if they were to just give up.

 

Your right... cash can’t buy a car anymore. I tried to buy my wife a new Yaris with cash and they told me to go get a bank cheque, flat out refused it.

Have you wondered why there are so many “exotic” rental shops popping up around the capitals? You realise drug dealers rent them right. They rent them full time. They can’t borrow the money from legitimate sources and they can’t wash the cash fast enough, so they rent them, at highly marked up “interest rates”.

There are ways of making everything work.

The other benefit is that when you are finally caught, they can’t seize the car... It’s amazing isn’t it!

 

Cash is not illegal. But more complex.