Sources of third-party information

We collect information from a wide range of third-party sources, both public and private, with more than 600 million transactions reported to us annually.

Examples of third-party sources and the information they provide include the following.

• Banks, financial institutions and investment bodies: investment income
• Employers: payments to employees and contractors
• State and territory motor vehicle registering bodies: motor vehicles sold, transferred or newly registered
• State and territory title offices and revenue agencies: sales and other transfers of real property
• Government bodies: pensions, benefits, rebates, taxable grants and other payments
• Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) and our international treaty partners: foreign source income
• Online selling platforms: quantity and value of online sales
• Sharing economy facilitators: payments to participants
• Financial institutions providing merchant facilities and administrators of specialised payment systems: electronic payments processed for business including total credit and debit card payments received
• Stock exchanges and share registries: share transactions
• Businesses in the building and construction industry: payments made for building and construction services
• Health insurers: confirmation of health insurance cover and premiums paid
• Cryptocurrency designated service providers: purchase and sale information

Some organisations (such as banks, employers, health insurers and other government agencies) have a legal obligation to report your information to us so that it can be used for taxation purposes. This is known as legislated data collection.

We also have powers to collect information for data-matching projects designed to address specific industries, issues or risks (such as our data-matching programs for credit and debit cards, motor vehicles, online selling and share market transactions). This is known as 'special purpose acquisition data'.

In addition, we exchange information with our international treaty partners to ensure correct reporting of income earned overseas by Australian residents and income earned in Australia by foreign residents. We also exchange data with other Australian Government agencies.

In all our data-matching activities we work closely with data suppliers to ensure that only relevant information is provided to us. The Taxpayers' Charter details the fair use of our access and information gathering powers.