How we notify the public
We notify the public of our intention to collect 2026–27 to 2028–29 Medicare entitlement statement data by:
- publishing a notice in the Federal Register of LegislationExternal Link gazette in the week starting 8 June 2026.
- publishing this data-matching program protocol on our website at Data-matching protocols.
- advising the data providers that they
- can notify their individual clients of their participation in this program
- Services Australia Privacy PolicyExternal Link on the Services Australia website includes that personal information is disclosed to us for data-matching purposes.
Gazette notice
The following information about the data-matching program appears as a gazette notice in the Federal Register of Legislation.
Gazette notice: Commissioner of Taxation - Notice of a Medicare entitlement statement data-matching program week starting 8 June 2026.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will acquire Medicare Exemption Statement (MES) data from Services Australia for 2026–27 through to 2028-29.
The data items include:
- full name, date of birth, residential address
- entitlement status, and approved entitlement period details.
We estimate that records relating to approximately 300,000 individuals will be obtained each financial year.
For this data-matching program, we will match MES data against ATO records.
The data collected under this program will be used to:
- identify taxpayers who are correctly claiming exemption from payment of the Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge and to exclude those taxpayers from unnecessary compliance activity.
The objectives of this program are to:
- support taxpayers to correctly claim exemption from payment of the Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge
- work with taxpayers and intermediaries to better understand the identified risks and trends
- inform education strategies to make compliance easier in the future
- support timely processing of tax returns and payment of refunds to taxpayers who are entitled to claim these exemptions
- undertake verification activities where available information indicates a taxpayer may not be entitled to claim the exemption, either partly or in full
- help ensure that taxpayers meet their tax, lodgment, reporting and payment obligations
- promote voluntary compliance by being transparent about how external data is used alongside ATO information.
A document describing this program is available at ato.gov.au/dmprotocols.
This program follows the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s (OAIC) (2014) Guidelines on data matching in Australian Government administration (the guidelines). The guidelines include standards for the use of data matching as an administrative tool in a way that:
- complies with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act)
- is consistent with good privacy practice.
A full copy of the ATO’s privacy policy can be accessed at ato.gov.au/dmprotocols