Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) and CPA Australia (the Joint Bodies) have lodged a joint submission on Treasury’s consultation paper entitled ‘Response to PwC - tax regulator information gathering powers review’. The review sought feedback on proposals to increase the information gathering powers of the ATO and the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB).

In the submission, the Joint Bodies make the following key points:

• The ATO’s existing formal powers for civil and administrative investigations are already extensive, with wider powers than many law enforcement agencies. We therefore do not support enabling the ATO to independently access telecommunications data and stored communications.
• The government should firstly consider other options to help the ATO fulfil its functions such as improving processes with prescribed taskforce procedures and increasing resource allocation to prescribed taskforces.
• Greater justification of an expansion of the ATO’s information gathering powers to require the production of documents in its investigations into tax-related criminal offences is needed. In the absence of such a justification we do not support this proposal.
• We support in-principle the expansion of the TPB’s information gathering powers to better enable it to administer the regulatory regime. Further detail is however needed on such powers and their sign must meet the minimum thresholds and principles for the introduction of ‘coercive powers to produce’.
• We believe that the 90-day minimum response period for an offshore information notice is appropriate and should not be reduced.