So you can not link the ATO to Centrelink but rather you will be linking the ATO and Centrelink to your MyGov account. If you still have access to your first email address, what you will need to to is log in and unlink your ATO account.
We can ask the ATO to withhold or garnishee some or all of your tax refund. The program aims to help you pay your Centrelink debt. To do this the ATO advises us when there is: an entitlement to a tax refund.
The Department of Human Services (DHS), which oversees Centrelink, has advised of a data matching project that will allow them to compare the existing income data they have with the tax return data that has already been reported to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
If you get a taxable Centrelink payment, you may need to lodge a tax return at the end of the tax year. You'll get a Centrelink payment summary if you get any of these taxable Centrelink payments: ABSTUDY Living Allowance, if you're 16 or older. Age Pension.
Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will acquire information on taxpayers who are holders of a visa from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP). This will assist the ATO to identify non-compliance with taxation and superannuation obligati.
From other government agencies…
Told Centrelink you're single in order to maximise your benefit, while simultaneously applying for a Partner visa? The ATO and Centrelink have this information, and now, thanks to data matching, so does Immigration. The ramifications of this can be pretty big.
We receive data from a range of sources, including banks, financial institutions and other government agencies. We validate this data and match it against our own information to identify where people and businesses may not be reporting all their income.
You may have to pay income tax on your taxable Centrelink payments. We don't automatically deduct tax from most of our payments. But you can ask us to do this for you if you get a taxable payment. This can reduce the amount of tax you may have to pay at the end of the tax year.
Reporting your income
If you don't report every 2 weeks, your payment will stop. We'll tell you which dates you must report on and when your income reporting will start. If you report late, your payment will be late.
The reason for this is to do with what has been included or excluded in your tax return; for example, attempting to reduce taxes by not correctly including income or incorrectly overclaiming deductions can trigger an ATO Audit.
The ATO can, and will, check your bank accounts, cross reference payments against an ABN and confirm missing income from your tax return.
Contrary to popular belief, Centrelink does not in fact have access to your bank account and doesn't monitor it when working out your payment rate. Instead, the rate of payment you receive from Centrelink is based on the assets and any work income you specified the last time you gave them your financial information.
“Each year, the ATO contacts around 2 million people about their returns. In most cases, audits are not our first action,” Foat said. She explained that audits were triggered if the ATO found a discrepancy in your tax return, which required further review to ensure the information you had provided was accurate.
If Centrelink suspects that you have committed an offence, they will first conduct an investigation. They may invite you to attend a formal interview or may come to your house. If they still believe you committed an offence, they will then refer the matter to the CDPP.
two years for most individuals and small businesses. two years for most medium businesses (see note 2) four years for all other taxpayers (see note 3).
Centrelink has very wide powers to thoroughly investigate deposits that have been made into your account. For example, it has the power to obtain your information from other government agencies as well as accessing information from banks, building societies and credit union accounts.
We can ask them to garnishee your tax refund. This means they will withhold or give us some or all of your tax refund or available credit. If we do, we'll send you a letter to let you know.
Centrelink has the power at this point to request details of your accounts from your bank. This information will be sent in an encrypted form to specialised staff, who will review them.
If you get extra income and a Centrelink payment, your income may be more than the tax-free threshold. If it is, you'll have to pay tax and may need to pay the Medicare levy at tax time.
You and your partner must have no more than $5,000 in combined readily available funds. This includes any liquid assets you can sell. Liquid assets include cash you have on hand, money you have in the bank and financial investments you have. They also include gifts and other money available to you at short notice.
The ATO has strong legal powers to access your personal bank information. Those powers allow the ATO to get your Australian bank statements directly from your bank. Therefore, any cash that you have deposited in your bank account may be subject to review and audit the ATO.
Not reporting your full income – the ATO looks at your full income, which may include bank interest, dividends, trust distributions. You'll need to account for all of your income on your tax return, not just your salary or wage.
Under current Federal legislation, all Australian banks are required to report cash transactions of $10,000 or more (or foreign equivalent), including details of the relevant account holders, to the regulator, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).