The Commissioner has this month met with the Commissioner of the Japanese National Tax Agency Mr Mitsutaka Inagaki at the 43rd Meeting of SGATAR in South Korea. The Commissioners discussed the use of the bilateral treaty to undertake joint compliance projects as well as multilateral cooperation.
The ATO said recent information sharing between the ATO and the National Tax Agency Japan had identified cases where Australian residents had not properly declared income from the sale of property at ski resort areas in the Niseko district, Hokkaido. Mr Jordan said the agencies had found “at least 10 cases where Australian residents sold property in Japan and did not properly declare income in their tax returns in one or both countries”.
The ATO said the sharing of information on real estate transactions in Japan is one example of Australia’s continuing focus on exchange of information with other jurisdictions under bilateral and multilateral treaties. Other information routinely exchanged with jurisdictions includes bank interest, dividends and other types of income. The ATO said it is expected that G20 countries will shortly expand and formalise automatic exchange of information, making the flow of information even easier.
Source: ATO media release, 30 October 2013
[LTN 211, 31/10/13]