March 2015 Newsletter 

In this edition:

Welcome

New ATO data matching programs

Potential ban on direct borrowing for SMSFs

Protect your family from life's surprises

New ATO powers to protect employee's superannuation entitlements

New ATO data matching programs

For motor vehicles and share transactions

The ATO is carrying out two new data matching programs to identify non-compliance with registration, lodgement, reporting and payment obligations: Motor vehicles The ATO has announced that as a part of its "Motor Vehicle Registries data matching program" it has extended its data matching capabilities to acquire details from Australian motor vehicle registries. 

It is expected that the records of two million transactions will be obtained for the 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 financial years where motor vehicles costing $10,000 or more were sold/transferred or newly registered. The ATO will have access to extensive transaction details, including:



• details of the purchaser(s), seller(s), licenced dealer, fleet manager, leasing company (or representative of any of these) and the registering person for an unincorporated body
• sale price of the vehicle
• market value of the vehicle
• type of intended vehicle use
• the vehicle's garaged address

These records will be electronically matched with certain sections of ATO data holdings to identify non-compliance in areas including GST, FBT, Income Tax, Luxury Car Tax and Fuel Schemes. Some aspects that are likely to be exposed include:

GST

• incorrect claiming of input tax credits above the luxury car limit
• failing to pay GST on the sale of vehicles
• incorrect calculations of GST on the sale of vehicles

FBT

• incorrect treatment of vehicles that are actually cars as defined for FBT purposes
• incorrect application of the FBT exemption to certain utes and other vehicles 
• incorrect calculation of "base values" for cars

Fuel Tax Credits

• incorrect calculating or claiming of fuel tax credits 

Share transactions

The ATO has also announced its "Share transactions data matching program" that will acquire details of share acquisitions and sales from 20 September 1985 to 30 June 2016 from various registries, with the aim of matching share sales and purchases and identifying unpaid Capital Gains Tax. There has also been discussion that the program will result in the detection of Employee Share Scheme reporting failures.

The type of data that the ATO will collect includes the name and address of the taxpayer, and the date, price and number of shares acquired or sold. It estimates that more than 95 million records will be obtained, including the records for approximately 1.2 million individuals.

The fact that this program collects information back to 20 September 1985 raises the question of whether the ATO will be amending assessments up to 30 years old. Ordinarily the ATO can go back two or four years where returns have not been correctly prepared but there are no limits where there has been fraud or evasion.

If you are concerned that you have not met your obligations in regards to any of the above please contact your GCC representative.