D'Ascenzo Speaks At International Conference OnTax Administration

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

31 March 2008

Michael D'Ascenzo, the Australian Commissioner of Taxation delivered a speech at the 8th International Conference on Tax Administration in Sydney on Thursday.

During his speech, Mr D'Ascenzo commented on forthcoming issues which may have an impact on Australia's tax and superannuation regime, including: the proposed carbon emissions trading scheme, globalisation and the increasing economic influence of China and India, the aging population and different approaches for securing retirement incomes, the emerging importance of the education sector in providing skilled people to increase productivity and workforce participation rates, and the emergence and impact of social networking technologies.

D'Ascenzo additionally spoke about the effectiveness of the Australian Taxation Office as a whole.

He also focused on international tax issues, observing that:

"The message from the OECD Forum on Tax Administration in Cape Town in 20088 was that globalisation requires increasing levels of international cooperation; and in Seoul in 2006 it was that the concealment of assets and income in countries without transparency and effective exchange of information is a challenge for all tax administrations."

"We have increased our scrutiny of those misusing tax havens," he added, further stating that:

"There is more information sharing between tax administrations and we are using more sophisticated analytical tools for identification and verification activity."

"We have continued our membership of the Joint International Tax Shelter Information Centre, working collaboratively with the United Kingdom, USA, Canada and Japan on international evasion and avoidance issues."

He continued: "In addition, our work with the tax administrations of Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA concerning Liechtenstein accounts that may have been used for tax evasion sends a strong message that nowhere is safe to hide from one’s responsibilities."

"Our broader strategy in relation to the Liechtenstein matter has been to raise global concern about the opaqueness of bank secrecy laws so as to encourage tax havens to be more transparent," the Tax Commissioner revealed.

Looking to the future, D'Ascenzo concluded:

"Our focus on improving the Taxation statistics publication in the past few years has meant that we have often not been able to assist researchers with particular requests for taxation and superannuation data. There is a considerable cost involved in ensuring confidentiality and checking data for external use and until now, at least, we have put our energies into Taxation statistics with the aim of making the most requested data available to all."

"Nevertheless, we would like to do more to assist researchers. We are planning to release our own strategic research plan – identifying areas of tax and superannuation administration where we propose to invest in research, including research undertaken by external researchers. An important qualification is that our ability to assist individual researchers may still be limited by resource constraints – we are currently managing some significant challenges on this front."

"The ATO’s effectiveness over the long term requires vision that values the past and challenges the future. We are striving to be both responsive to the present while building and innovating for the future."

Recommended