How we use property management data
The data collected under this program will be used to support the correct reporting of rental income, expenses and capital gains tax.
Education and online services
Property management data is available to taxpayers and tax professionals through online services.
The data may be available to:
- tax professionals through
- pre-filling reports in Online services for agents
- Practitioner Lodgment Service (PLS) through Standard Business Reporting (SBR) enabled software
- nudge messaging
- individual self-preparers through myTax, specifically
- rental property schedule income and deduction labels
- rental income tax return labels
- real time nudge messaging
- screen prompters and reason codes.
Data analytics and insights
The data helps us:
- inform individuals with a rental property of their tax obligations as part of an educative campaign including
- advisory educational emails and letters
- social media
- posters and toolkits on our website
- identify relevant cases for administrative action including compliance activities and educational strategies
- after a return is lodged, if we need to verify a discrepancy, we'll contact the taxpayer by phone, letter or email
- before we take any administrative action, the taxpayer will be able to verify the accuracy of the information we hold. They will have 28 days to respond before we take administrative action associated with Property management data use
- refine our risk models to more accurately identify target populations
- develop tools that assist us to profile taxpayers
- improve the accuracy, completeness, and reliability of this and other investment property related datasets
- avoid unnecessary contact with individuals who are correctly reporting and claiming rental property income and deductions
- make it easier for taxpayers to interact with the system and get their affairs right.
Previous related programs
The Property management data-matching protocol was first published on 17 May 2021 and collected data from the 2018–19 to 2022–23 financial years. This protocol outlines our intention to continue collecting data for the 2023–24 to 2025–26 financial years.
Our collection of data from 2018–19 to 2025–26 financial years helps us:
- understand property management data potential, highlighting areas for action and improvement
- tailor education campaigns to help taxpayers report rental income and expenses correctly
- identify taxpayers who have reported incorrectly and engage in corrective activity
- understand the income and expenses associated with rental properties by linking with other property data sources, including
Data providers
The ATO is the matching agency and in most cases is the sole user of the data obtained during this data-matching program.
We may obtain data from property management software companies and their subsidiaries.
Eligibility as a data provider
We adopt a principles-based approach to ensure that our selection of data providers is fair and transparent.
Inclusion of a data provider is based on the following principles:
- The data owner or its subsidiary operates a business in Australia that is governed by Australian law.
- The data owners provide software solutions for property management.
- The data owner provided software solutions for property management in the years in focus.
If a data provider's client base does not present a risk, or the administrative or financial cost of collecting the data exceeds the benefit the data may provide, the data owner may be excluded from the program.
The data providers for this program will be reviewed annually against the eligibility principles.
See our Submission to the Information Commissioner setting out the basis for deviating from the publication of data provider names under the requirements of the guidelines and its impacts on individual privacy.
Our formal information gathering powers
To ensure statutory requirements are met, we obtain data under our formal information gathering powers. These are contained in section 353-10 of Schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953.
This is a coercive power, and data providers are obligated to provide the information requested.
We will use the data for tax and super compliance purposes.
Privacy Act
Data will only be used within the limits prescribed by Australian Privacy Principle 6 (APP6) contained in Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act and in particular:
- APP6.2(b) – the use of the information is required or authorised by an Australian law
- APP6.2(e) – the ATO reasonably believes that the use of the information is reasonably necessary for our enforcement-related activities.
Data elements we collect
We will collect data from property management software companies for residential and commercial properties.
We negotiate with the selected data providers individually to obtain data held within their systems. The collected data may contain all or a selection of the following fields.
Client identification details – individuals
Identification details include:
- given and surnames (if more than one name)
- dates of birth
- addresses (residential, postal, other)
- Australian business number (if applicable)
- email address
- contact phone number.
Client identification details – non-individuals
Identification details include:
- business name
- addresses (business, postal, registered, other)
- Australian business number
- contact name
- contact phone number
- email address.
Property details
Property details include:
- unique identifier for the property
- property address
- date property first available for rent
- property manager name
- property manager address
- property manager contact phone number
- property manager email address
- property manager ABN
- property manager licence number
- bank account name for landlord
- bank account number for landlord
- bank account BSB for landlord.
Transaction details
Transaction details include:
- period start date
- period end date
- transaction type
- transaction description
- transaction amount
- ingoings and outgoings
- rental property account balance.
Number of records
We expect to collect data on approximately 2.3 million individuals each financial year for this program.
Data quality
We anticipate that the data quality will be of a high standard. Testing via compliance activities found the data to be of good quality and beneficial to the treatment of the rentals omitted income risk.
Property management software providers have sophisticated computer systems. Property management providers operate in cross jurisdictional legislative frameworks. They must satisfy specific regulatory requirements including licencing, registration, and due diligence obligations to maintain the quality of their records as part of their maintenance and supervision of trust accounts as real-estate businesses.
The data is sourced from providers' systems and may not be available in a format that can be readily processed by our systems. We apply extra levels of scrutiny and analytics to verify the quality of the data. This includes but is not limited to:
- meeting with data providers to understand their data holdings, including their data use, data currency, formats, compatibility and natural systems
- sampling data to ensure it is fit for purpose before fully engaging providers on acquisition tasks
- verification practices at receipt of data to check against confirming documentation. We then use algorithms and other analytical methods to refine the data.
Data retention
We collect data under this program for all financial years from 2018–19 to 2025–26. We collect this data annually following the end of each financial year.
Due to the number of data providers, we collect data periodically. We work cooperatively with data providers and aim to balance our requests against peaks and troughs of demand in a data provider's own business.
We destroy data that's no longer required, in accordance with the Archives Act 1983, the records authorities issued by the National Archives of Australia, both general and ATO-specific.
We will retain each financial year’s data for 7 years from receipt of the final instalment of verified data files from all data providers. The data is required for this period for the protection of public revenue due to the following:
- The discrepancy matching that occurs under parts of this program is iterative in nature. This includes the data being used to generate lodgment reviews with subsequent lodgments then being compared to the transactional data for accuracy. This process can typically occur over multiple financial years.
- Retaining data for 7 years does not change our general compliance approach of reviewing an assessment within the standard period of review, which also aligns with the requirements for taxpayers to keep their records.
- The data enhances our ability to identify taxpayers who may not be complying with their tax and super obligations, which is integral to protecting the integrity of the tax and super systems.
- Real estate, such as a rental property that is sold, potentially triggers a capital gains event. This can include a main residence that has been rented out for a period. A property may be retained for many years prior to disposal. Retaining the data is necessary to assess rental impacts for capital gains events.
- The data is also used in multiple risk models, including models that establish retrospective profiles over multiple years aligned with period of review.
- The data is used to conduct long-term trend analysis and risk-profiling of the rental property market which helps inform education campaigns.
While increased data-retention periods may increase the risk to privacy, we have a range of safeguards to appropriately manage and minimise this risk. ATO systems and controls are designed to ensure the privacy and security of the data we manage.