Australian Taxation Office Investigating 30 Years Worth of Real Estate Deals

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) plans to probe 30 years of real estate deals announcing to pull details of all property transactions dating back to 1985, covering about 900 million records of 11.3 million individuals, Reb Online reports.

Data and information will be sourced from revenue offices, lands departments and rental bond authorities across the country's states and territories.

The ATO also expressed their action to consult intermediaries like agencies to "obtain an understanding of the risks and issues, as well as trends of non-compliance".

"During the 2014-15 financial year, the ATO identified over 8,000 cases where real property dealings had not been treated correctly and raised an additional $161 million in revenue. This demonstrates the effectiveness of this program in protecting public revenue," it said.

Those anticipated to be affected by this program is anyone who made a real estate deal in the past 30 years, from buying, selling, or renting out, according to Mark Chapman of H&R.

Talking to REB, Chapman believes that this is the best time for the agents to prove their trusted adviser status with calling old clients and giving them a heads up of the crackdown.

"Anybody who's engaged in property transactions on a regular basis really needs to know about this, and this would be a great opportunity to bring it to their attention," he said.

"I think the key thing is to emphasise to clients that they need to be confident that they have correctly recorded for tax purposes all of their transactions - particularly over the last four years, because that's the period that the tax office typically chooses to review."

If a client is concerned or is suspecting a possible error, Chapman highly recommends that they consult an accountant who can help them go through their real estate tax record "because the ATO has got all this information and its clearly going to start using it".