By Leith van Onselen

Anyone that still believes that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) is not serious about cracking-down on illegal foreign investment into Australian property needs to re-think their position.

As revealed by Treasurer Scott Morrison last month, the ATO has been manned with 50 enforcement officers and has sophisticated systems and detailed data matching capabilities at its disposal. Already, the ATO has launched investigations over 1,044 cases of potential illegal foreign investment of which 532 cases are currently under active investigation, with investigations likely to balloon now that the amnesty on illegal foreign buyers has finished.

Today, the ATO has lodged a notice in the Government Gazette (see here), which has demanded 32 years of detailed transaction history from Australia’s state and territory land titles offices and rental boards, in order to create a new central depository of data on property ownership.

Below is the information that the ATO is seeking, which is quite detailed:

Rental Bond Authorities

Rental bond number of identifier for rental bond

Unique identifier for the landlord

Full name of the landlord

Full address of the landlord

Date of birth of the landlord

Contact telephone numbers for the landlord

Unique identifier of the managing agent

Full name of the managing agent

Full address of the managing agent

Unique identifier of the rental property

Full address of the rental property

Period of lease

Commencement and expiration of the lease

Amount of rental bond held

Number of weeks the rental bond is for

Amount of rent payable for each period

Period of rental payments (weekly, fortnightly, monthly)

Type of dwelling

Number of bedrooms

Revenue and land title authorities

Date of property transfer

Full street address of the property transferred

Municipality identifier of the property transferred

Property sale contract date

Property sale settlement date

Property land area

Property sub-division date

Total property transfer price

Land usage code

Transferor’s full name

Transferor’s full address

Transferor’s share percentage and manner of holding

Transferor’s date of birth

Transferor’s Australian Company Number (ACN) or Australian Business Number (ABN)

Transferee’s full name

Transferee’s full address

Transferee’s property share percentage and manner of holding

Transferee’s date of birth

Transferee’s ACN or ABN

Land tax and applicable exemption details

Purchase duty and applicable exemption details

Valuation details

The ATO explains the purpose behind obtaining the data as follows:

The purpose of this data matching program is to ensure that taxpayers are correctly meeting taxation and other program obligations administered by the ATO in relation to their dealings with real property. These obligations include registration, lodgment, reporting and payment responsibilities… Based on current data holdings it is estimated that records relating to 11.3 million individuals will be matched… The objectives are to: obtain intelligence about the acquisition and disposal of real property and identify risks and trends of non-compliance across the broader compliance program

identify a range of compliance activities appropriate to address risks with real property transactions by taxpayers

work with real property intermediaries to obtain an understanding of the risks and issues, as well as trends of non-compliance

gain support and input into compliance strategies to minimise future risk to revenue

promote voluntary compliance and strengthen community confidence in the integrity of the tax system by publicising the outcomes of the data matching program

ensure compliance with registration, lodgment, correct reporting and payment of taxation and superannuation obligations.

Obviously, having robust data will make it much easier for the ATO to prosecute illegal activity under the new foreign investment enforcement regime, which came into effect on 1 December (see here for an overview).

And with it, the illegal foreign buyers and their accomplices that have helped price-out young Australians from home ownership will have nowhere to hide.

Bring on the penalties and divestment orders.

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