New legislation to be introduced in the Australian Parliament will help agencies involved in Project Wickenby to better share information to aid law enforcement, the government announced last week.
The Treasurer, Peter Costello, and Minister for Revenue, Peter Dutton, said that enhanced sharing of information between the Project Wickenby agencies will assist in the pursuit of those allegedly involved in tax avoidance or evasion, highlighting the Government’s resolve to defend the integrity of the Australian tax system.
Project Wickenby is a multi-agency taskforce investigating internationally promoted tax arrangements allegedly involving tax avoidance or evasion, and in some cases large-scale money-laundering. It combines, for the first time, the expertise of the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, supported by AUSTRAC, the Attorney-General’s Department and the Australian Government Solicitor, to deal with large scale tax avoidance and evasion.
In addition to this first step, there will be a larger project to improve the laws that protect taxpayer information and allow disclosures to help deliver entitlements and meet law enforcement and integrity provisions.
In this regard, the Treasurer announced last week the release of a Treasury discussion paper on the Review of Taxation Secrecy and Disclosure Provisions.
This paper looks across all the existing tax secrecy and disclosure provisions from around 30 tax Acts, and proposes to standardise the provisions into a new framework in a single piece of legislation. This will provide increased certainty for taxpayers, tax officials and users of tax information, such as government departments and agencies.
This initiative is another example of the Australian Government’s determination to reduce the complexity and volume of Australia’s tax laws.
The discussion paper also identifies a number of possible new disclosures for further consideration.
The Government is seeking submissions from interested parties on the proposals and issues set out in the discussion paper until 29 September 2006.
http://www.treasurer.gov.au/tsr/content/pressreleases/2006/091.asp
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