Taxation Office has a data-matching program of work underway to make sure taxpayers aren’t hiding cryptocurrencies.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has estimated that there are over 600,000 taxpayers that have invested in digital assets in recent years. It said its own data analysis shows a dramatic increase in trading since the beginning of 2020. « The innovative and complex nature of cryptocurrencies can lead to a genuine lack of awareness of the tax obligations associated with these activities, » the ATO said. « Also, the pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrencies may make it attractive to those seeking to avoid their taxation obligations. » The remarks were made by the ATO in a submission [PDF] to the Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre inquiry currently underway. It explained that the ATO introduced a data-matching program in April 2019 in a bid to regulate the tax consequences of cryptocurrency transactions. Under the program, cryptocurrency transactions have been collected from Australian based cryptocurrency exchanges for the 2014-15 to 2019-20 financial years and will be expanded to capture data up to and including 2022-23.
