Program objectives
Our data-matching programs help us fulfil our responsibility to protect public revenue and maintain community confidence in the integrity of the tax, super, and registry systems.
The objectives of the Officeholder data-matching program are to:
- enable Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS)External Link to increase uptake of the director identification number (director ID) through better information on officeholders recorded by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC) and Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC)
- effectively link persons known to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to officeholders and their associated companies as recorded on the ASIC Companies register, the ORIC register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, and the ACNC Charity Register
- promote voluntary compliance and strengthen community confidence in the integrity of the tax and super systems by publicising the running of this data-matching program
- identify and educate company officeholders who may be failing to meet their registration and ongoing payment, withholding, or lodgment obligations and assist them to comply
- identify and educate new company officeholders of their director ID obligations
- identify and contact company office holders to confirm registration details including contact numbers, addresses or names
- help ensure company Officeholders are fulfilling their tax and super reporting and compliance obligations
- identify, deter, and disrupt those promoting or engaging in illegal phoenix activity
- better utilise registry data to combat unlawful activity.
Why we look at officeholder data
The ABRS is responsible for administering the director ID service. Directors of Australian companies and other entities as recorded on the ASIC Companies register, the ACNC Charity Register, or an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporation registered with ORIC, are required to apply for a director ID.
To administer the director ID service, the ABRS and ASIC rely on matching ATO client records with officeholder appointments as recorded on the ASIC Companies register, the ORIC register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, or the ACNC Charity Register.
ABRS may also share director ID information relating to officeholders back to ASIC, ORIC or the ACNC as appropriate to support their administrative functions when required.
By matching an officeholder appointment to an ATO record we can:
- improve the quality and availability of registry and director ID data
- establish whether an individual director is meeting their obligation to have a director ID
- contact an existing or new director of a registered corporation, and advise them of their obligations before they are penalised for not complying
- identify any discrepancies in contact information held by the ATO or ABRS (or both) and use ASIC, ORIC or ACNC data to contact officeholders to confirm and correct their details
- identify other officeholders and link them to the relevant entities
- identify and address tax and super risks
- gain valuable insights from the data to understand behavioural patterns to develop and implement strategies to improve voluntary compliance
- better detect director and company fraud, illegal behaviours, and associated networks
- support taskforce programs including the Phoenix Taskforce.
Matching officeholders as recorded by ASIC, ORIC and ACNC to an ATO record enables our phoenix compliance program to identify, deter, and disrupt those promoting or engaging in illegal phoenix activity by:
- working to disrupt their business model and make it financially unviable
- removing their ability to operate
- applying financial penalties
- prosecuting the worst offenders.