ATO logo

Modernising tax administration systems

Improved tax administration for trustees, beneficiaries and tax agents is coming in Tax Time 2026 and 2027.

Published 24 March 2026

The Modernisation of Tax Administration Systems program

As part of the 2024–25 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Australian Government announced support for an expansion of the Modernisation of Tax Administration Systems (MTAS) program.

The program builds upon the changes that were:

  • first announced in the March 2022 Budget as the 'Digitising trust income reporting and processing measure'
  • delivered in Tax Time 2024.

Aims of the program

The program aims to:

  • improve the lodgment experience for trustees and beneficiaries, making it easier to meet reporting obligations and reduce errors
  • enable greater transparency through improved reporting, data-matching, and pre-fill
  • strengthen system integrity and ensuring consistent reporting across all trusts to enable us to ensure the right amount of tax is being paid
  • support taxpayers to meet their obligations, and direct compliance and assurance activities towards taxpayers of highest risk.

Improvements to our systems

Improvements to our systems will:

  • reduce compliance costs for trustees, beneficiaries and tax agents
  • enable even more trust tax returns to be lodged electronically
  • enable the pre-filling of trust distributions to beneficiary's tax returns.

The MTAS program will deliver these improvements through changes in both Tax Time 2026 and Tax Time 2027.

 

How the MTAS changes will improve tax administration for trustees from 1 July 2026.

How the MTAS changes will improve tax administration for beneficiaries from 1 July 2026.

How the MTAS changes will improve tax administration for Tax Agents from 1 July 2026.

QC106280