Aust, US swap details in tax crackdown

The tax office is beefing up efforts to catch international tax cheats by swapping banking information with US authorities.

Details of more than 30,000 financial accounts worth over $5 billion held in Australia by US citizens will be provided to US Internal Revenue Services under the first wave of transparency measures being implemented by governments and tax administrations across the world.

In return, the Australian Taxation Office will get data from the US about Australians with US accounts, which it can use to detect instances of undeclared offshore income and tax evasion.

“The ATO is committed to ensuring that taxpayers are disclosing their offshore income,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

From 2017, Australia will be joining close to 100 countries in sharing non-resident data under a new OECD common reporting standard that was agreed to through the G20.