Two months left to declare foreign income
Australians have only two months left to declare their undisclosed offshore income and assets if they want to avoid risk compliance action and severe penalties.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) issued the warning as the 19 December deadline approaches under Project DO IT.
The ATO said those who voluntarily disclose as part of Project DO IT will be assessed for the last four years, and will only face a maximum shortfall penalty of 10 per cent and will escape criminal investigation.
"What we're seeing is people waking up to the fact that it doesn't make sense anymore to hide assets and income offshore - recent developments in exchange of information between countries and improved data matching capability mean there's nowhere left to hide." Deputy commissioner Michael Cranston said.
He added around 1500 taxpayers have already disclosed their tax activities and returned income and assets back into the tax system.
"So far we've had disclosures of more than $180 million in previously unreported offshore income and over $1 billion in assets," Mr Cranston said.
The ATO also said accessing overseas banking information will be easier as Australia is committed to the automatic global exchange of information.
AUTHOR
Malavika Santhebennur
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