Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan says they are on the hunt for information to catch multinationals

Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan says information sharing with foreign nations has allowed it to raise $730 million worth of tax liabilities over the past two financial years.

In a speech to be delivered at the Tax Institute’s annual conference in Gold Coast on Thursday morning, Mr Jordan says he is confident that the number will significantly increase as the Australian Taxation Office gets better information through treaty and exchange agreements.

“We are doing what we can to ensure that individuals and companies pay the right amount of tax here in Australia,” Mr Jordan says in the speech provided to Fairfax Media.

Australia has information-sharing agreements with tax authorities in 36 countries, as well as treaties with 44 countries.

In 2012-13 such exchanges resulted in $480 million in tax and penalties and interest.

This figure dipped to $250 million in 2013-14, but the Tax Office says there is often a lag between demands for information and actually issuing tax bills. It expects to raise significant liabilities from financial information exchanges this year.

Mr Jordan said the ATO was working in sync with 38 countries to multinationals suspected of tax evasion.

“With so many tax authorities committed to working closely together, at Australia’s instigation, we will have much more timely and detailed information available to us on aggressive tax avoidance,” he says.

The Tax Office has also benefited from informants and leaks. Some of these involved information it got through an informer on hundreds of Australians identified as holding HSBC bank accounts in the former tax haven of Switzerland, but there have also been other sources.

“Since 2006, we have identified about 1900 Australians and offshore promoters,” he says. “We have undertaken about 800 audits, reviews and nudge letters, resulting in $340 million in liabilities being raised and 18 successful prosecutions.”

Mr Jordan will also pledge to solve disputes with taxpayers faster and more fairly than has been the case in the past.

The Tax Office has faced widespread criticism for the way its staff have treated small business people and individual taxpayers in the past, with the federal inquiry into tax disputes hearing from people who have lost their livelihoods and contemplated suicide because of the way the ATO treated them.

Mr Jordan said that while most taxpayer interactions with the ATO do not end up in dispute, they “impact people’s lives”.

“We have a number of strategies in place to resolve disputes as early as possible – early face-to-face or telephone engagement, increased use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) … [and] sensible settlement guidelines,” he says.

Despite the ATO’s increased efforts to reduce the amount of money owed to it, the amount of collectible has continued to rise from $18 billion to more than $20 billion.

To avoid this, Mr Jordan says it will increase efforts to get this money by “taking legal action earlier when warranted”.

“This means initiating bankruptcy and wind-up action where there is evidence that a taxpayer is insolvent, and looking to use other statutory powers where businesses have failed to pay employee superannuation entitlements or pay amounts held in trust,” he says.

“Litigation is appropriate where … the behaviour is such that we need to send a strong message to an individual – or broadly to the community that we won’t sit idly by,” he says.

The Commissioner will also speak about the Tax Office leadership’s recent attempts to change the internal culture.

Mr Jordan has long advocated his desire to move to a system of “willing participation” – that is that most people willingly pay their due taxes.

He will announce a “Reinventing the ATO Blueprint” on Thursday that describes the kind of experience that Australians want to have when they deal with the ATO.

“It will guide everything we do in the coming years,” Mr Jordan says.

Individuals will for their 2016 return be able to use an app to capture tax-related deductions “on the go”. “The app will record, classify and upload work-related deductions data direct to their myTax return in time for Tax Time 2016 – which means the days of the shoebox full of old receipts are gone,” Mr Jordan says.

Half a million taxpayers will also get “OK letters” for “simple, straightforward affairs” that confirm their 2015 tax return is closed from further review or audit.

“By using pre-filling and background analytics, we can provide this confirmation to these taxpayers within about a month of them lodging their return – except in cases where there is good reason to suspect fraud or false claims,” he says.

Mr Jordan believes the word “dispute” is no longer relevant for the majority of taxpayers.

“Doesn’t that start us off on different sides, set us up to focus on our differences?” he says. “Perhaps it is just a matter of clarification or correction – not actually a dispute.”

Recent ATO data shows that the Tax Office settled on disputes with 34 large business – typically those with over $250 million turnover – that amount to over $1.2 billion.

This, according to a recent review into tax disputes by the Inspector-General of Taxation Ali Noroozi, has left the ATO open to allegations of favouritism – cutting deals with the top end of town but not with small companies, which lack the resources to effectively dispute claims.