ATO probing 30 years of real estate deals

This will be unpleasant news for some who have done the wrong thing.
ATO probing 30 years of real estate deals

 

quote..
“During the 2014-15 financial year, the ATO identified over 8,000 cases where real property dealings had not been treated correctly and raised an additional $161 million in revenue. This demonstrates the effectiveness of this program in protecting public revenue,” it said.

It may be a lot more if they go back 30 years,plus it would change their measure of success when the ATO come knocking..

 

It's very easy for the ATO as well. They send the letter basically saying "we've identified this sale, you have 28 days to respond or we will issue a default assessment".

Appealing a default assessment is a difficult process as well.

 

Not sure how someone would complete a purchase incorrectly? It goes through a legal rep and the titles office. Registered for stamp duty and land tax. Are people really dodging this?

 

Sell and don't declare CGT.

 

The ATO has only very recently reached an agreement with the states to actually get access to any of this information and the states are only just starting to record this information electronically as well so it's a recent development.

There are an absurd amount of people who don't report the CGT on properties that they otherwise should.

 

How many? How do you know? Are you just making that up?

 

Its more than 2.

“During the 2014-15 financial year, the ATO identified over 8,000 cases where real property dealings had not been treated correctly and raised an additional $161 million in revenue. This demonstrates the effectiveness of this program in protecting public revenue,” (from the article linked)

Many people mistakenly claim the main residence exemption when they are not entitled to - whether by mistake or on purpose. I think there would be many renting out rooms and not declaring both the income and capital gains - this wouldn't be easy to detect either. And some just sell investment properties and fail to report it.

maybe it is like drug imports. They estimate the number of drugs being imported by the amount they find - they say they find only 10% of the amount imported.

 

I'd like to see those figures from the ATO website. I wouldn't think the audit compliance reports for the 2015 financial year would be out this early.

Anyway I'll keep looking.

 

As song by Tex Perkins(Cruel Sea)

Better get a lawyer son
Better get a real good one
Better get a lawyer son
Better get a real good one..

 

It doesn't say the transactions were in 2014/15, it says they were identified in 2014/15

 

OK. Just hope the tax office goes back 30 years on the big end of town. They'll sure pull in some money there lol.

 

Would not do them any good going back that far on the big end of town,most would be belly-up 2 buck companies,or the people they are interested in dead,maybe just go back the last 15 years,because every time i sit in the accountants office that's one of the first questions they ask
have you sold anything over the past six months,and with data matching,and other ways that are in place it would be very hard to get away with not paying cgt..

 

Undeclared rental income is an even bigger issue, thousands of landlords (including renting through real estate agencies) pocket the rent tax free safe in the knowledge they cannot be detected.

 

Not sure where you are getting this info but the ATO has had access to data from all states land titles registry offices for many years. The problem they would have, like with all data is the matching process, the states that record date of birth data at the registries would likely be much better matches than other states who do not. Try working out which Mr Smith has disposed of a property and not declared it on his return from a name alone.

 

@wogitalia and @Terry_w ... ah ok that makes sense about the CGT

 

Just read a little about the tax commissioner. Ex cop, ex KPMG.

Staff cuts, cracks down on staff sickies. Achieves targets with less staff..... A real go getter.

I've seen these type in the workplace, they don't last. Eventually they step on the wrong toes.

 

I even heard they removed individual bins at desks to save on cleaning costs. But now it takes everyone 10min to walk to the bin to throw out there garbage.

 

The ATO has been cut to the bone recently so I’m not sure how effective they still are due to their lack of resources. Cost cutting is never effective for organisations in the long term because it reduces innovation and morale for employees, which effects productivity. Trust is affected so you than need to hire more middle managers just to monitor that everybody is doing their work, to fill out paperwork, performance manage people etc.

 

The main purpose as I understand is to catch people who didn't comply with FIRB