News

ATO Notice of a Data Matching Program

26th Nov 2008

Commissioner of Taxation

NOTICE OF A DATA MATCHING PROGRAM

The Australian Taxation Office (Tax Office) will electronically match data relating to the sale and ownership of thoroughbred racehorses, to be supplied by William Inglis & Son Ltd, Magic Millions and the Registrar of Racehorses, a division of Racing Information Services Australia Pty Ltd, with information held by the Tax Office.

The objective is to identify individuals who have a significant interest in thoroughbred racehorses. This information, when combined with additional wealth indicators, will assist in identifying taxpayers whose net wealth is such that their affairs should be reviewed under the high wealth individuals program. This will also assist the Tax Office to ensure that the correct tax treatment of their affairs is in accordance with the provisions contained in
the Income Tax Assessment Acts 1936 and 1997.

The matching process will be applied to about 10,000 sales records from the auctioneers and about 35,000 thoroughbred records from the registrar. Because various types of ownership arrangement exist, this is likely to produce around 87,500 ownership records, but because of multiple ownerships it is not known how many unique owner records will be produced.

A document describing this program has been prepared in consultation with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. A copy of this document is available from:

Information Collection and Data Matching Team
Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 9977
Adelaide SA 5001

Telephone: (08) 7422 2328

The Tax Office complies with the Privacy Commissioner’s Guidelines on Data Matching in Commonwealth Administration which includes standards for data matching to protect the privacy of individuals.