In their continual efforts to catch tax cheats, the tax office are boosting their data matching projects and we thoughts that two of these in particular might be of interest to you.
Firstly, they’ll be collecting records from all of the major insurance companies for anyone who owns a watercraft insured for over $25,000. The logic here is that anyone who owns such a luxury may need their affairs reviewed as a high risk individual to ensure that their taxes are both accurate and up-to-date.
The tax office will also be collecting records from each of the state vehicle registries (VIcRoads, NSW RTA, etc) for all vehicle transfers during the 2011 financial year for over $10,000. This will enable them to check tax records to ensure that vehicle disposals have been correctly included in tax returns and as with the boats above, to identify high-risk taxpayers who are spending more than their income would suggest they are capable of.
It’s pretty staggering to see just how far the tax office can reach in order to keep an eye on everyone. These two activities alone will extract over 2.7 million records so while we’ll always claim as much for you as we legitimately can, it’s more important than ever to be honest with your taxes!