Australia - Notice for Digital Platforms

On July 8, 2024, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) published a notice that will collect relevant information concerning sales conducted through the facilitating digital platform from 2023 to 2026 in cases where the marketplace seller has reached the annual threshold of AUD 12,000 for the underlying supplies.

The Objective of the Program

The Tax Authority will collect relevant sales information from digital platforms for supplies where the place of supply is within the country. The collection of the data could be categorically divided into the following groups:

• Individual client identification details: name and surname, date of birth, account holder’s addresses, Australian business number, email address, contact phone number

• Business client identification details: such as business name, address, Australian business number, contact name, email address, contact phone number,

• Account details: including account name, identification number, account registration date, account registration type, store type, seller status, IP address, number of annual sales transactions, value of annual sales transactions, number of monthly sales transactions, and value of monthly sales transactions.

The ATO estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 accounts will be obtained each financial year, whereas approximately 10,000 to 20,000 matched records will relate to individuals.

The program aims to promote voluntary compliance and community confidence in tax and superannuation systems, gain insights for developing engagement strategies, and identify and assist individuals and businesses in meeting their registration and lodgment obligations to ensure compliance.

Along with other ATO-held data, the data collected under this program is used in analytical models to identify, assess, and treat high-risk activities. If the ATO detects discrepancies between online sales and information declared in the sellers' tax returns, further investigation is conducted to determine the causes of these discrepancies.

Conclusions

The ATO uses external data and the data it obtains to ensure that all involved parties, primarily individuals and businesses, comply with their tax obligations and to detect tax fraud. Furthermore, online sales data greatly affects the registration for Goods and Services Tax (GST) purposes and its collection and remittance.

Source: Australian Taxation Office (ATO) - Online selling data, Australian Taxation Office (ATO) - Notifying the public of the data-matching program, Australian Taxation Office (ATO) - Data-matching protocols