Government Announcements
Consolidation of tax secrecy and disclosure provisions
13.03.2009
On 13 March 2009 the Assistant Treasurer released for public comment an exposure draft Tax Laws Amendment (Confidentiality of Taxpayer Information) Bill 2009 and explanatory materials. The exposure draft Bill proposes to implement the single and consolidated framework, outlined in a Treasury discussion paper released in 2006, to govern the protection and disclosure of taxpayer information received by the ATO in the course of administering the taxation laws.
In standardising taxation secrecy and disclosure provisions (currently found across 18 taxation Acts), the new framework is intended to address inconsistencies and ambiguities with the current provisions that have been enacted over a long time and in a number of different drafting styles. The new framework is intended to provide greater clarity and certainty to taxpayers, the ATO and users of taxpayer information and will reduce the volume and complexity of the taxation law.
In addition to standardising existing taxation secrecy and disclosure provisions, the new framework also makes it clear that the future disclosure of taxpayer information should only be permitted where the public benefit from the disclosure outweighs taxpayer privacy.
Other key features of the new framework include:
- maintaining current levels of disclosures that can be made by the ATO to other government agencies;
- introducing some new disclosure provisions, where the public benefit outweighs taxpayer privacy;
- clear rules to govern the on-disclosure of taxpayer information provided by the ATO to another agency or entity;
- clarifying that there is no prohibition on the disclosure of taxpayer information that is lawfully available to the public; and
- providing that a taxpayer’s consent can not in and of itself authorise the disclosure of their information.
For the text of the Assistant Treasurer’s media release click here. The media release contains a link to the exposure draft Bill and explanatory materials.
