About information sharing
We work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Joint International Taskforce on Shared Information & Collaboration (JITSIC) Network and overseas jurisdictions to improve global tax transparency.
Our transparency regimes and initiatives are part of Australia’s commitment to combat international tax avoidance. They involve comprehensive exchanges of taxpayer information and the number of jurisdictions we now exchange information with is growing fast.
These regimes and initiatives contribute to ensuring individual and corporate taxpayers pay the right amount of tax in Australia.
International Exchange of Information (EOI) is the key mechanism used to share taxpayer-related information between Australia and other jurisdictions in order to administer and enforce Australia’s tax laws.
Automatic exchange of information (AEOI) regimes
We automatically exchange information with a number of partner jurisdictions. Our AEOI measures include:
- Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting – CbC is an OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Item. It requires Significant Global Entities to provide us with three statements giving a global perspective of their structure, operations, financial arrangements and economic activity.
- Common Reporting Standard (CRS) – CRS is the global standard to collect, report and exchange financial account information from respective domestic financial institutions on foreign tax residents.
- Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – Under FATCA, Australia and the US collect and exchange financial account information from respective domestic financial institutions on foreign tax residents.
- Automatic exchange of information guidance – CRS and FATCA – Guide to how Australia participates in automatic exchange of financial account information with foreign jurisdictions.
- Other bulk taxpayer information exchanges – We automatically exchange bulk taxpayer information containing various types of income with partner jurisdictions that have signed a tax treatyExternal Link with Australia or are signatories to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (PDF 625KB)This link will download a file.
Exchange of rulings
The exchange of rulings strengthens transparency through compulsory spontaneous exchange of information on certain types of rulings. For more information, see the OECD Action 5 final reportExternal Link.
Panama Papers
We have identified Australian residents linked to the Panama Papers and intermediaries who facilitated arrangements, and are taking action against taxpayers who have not met their obligations.
Paradise Papers
We have been working closely, for several months, with our partner agencies here and overseas in anticipation of the latest data release by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Read more about this in our statement regarding the paradise papers.
We encourage those who believe they may have undeclared offshore income to contact us and come forward by making a voluntary disclosure.