Hot on the heels of reports that a growing number of self managed super funds (SMSFs) are sustaining significant losses in crypto asset investments, the ATO has announced it will be extending its current crypto asset data-matching program for the 2023–2024 financial year through to the 2025–2026 financial year. Under this program, identification data will be collected from both individuals and non-individuals, such as SMSFs or other entities.
It is expected that around 700,000 to 1.2 million individuals and entities will be affected in each financial year of the data-matching program. A point of difference with this particular program is that the data retention period will be seven years from the receipt of the final instalment of verified data files from data providers, as opposed to the usual five years for other data-matching programs run by the ATO.
The ATO justifies this longer retention period by pointing to the need to conduct longer-term trend analysis and risk profiling of the crypto market, as well noting that crypto assets are often retained over many years before they are disposed of and trigger a CGT event. The ATO will use the data obtained from the program to promote voluntary compliance and educate individuals and businesses that may be failing to meet their registration and/or lodgment obligations. In addition, insights from the data will be used to develop compliance profiles of individuals and businesses and initiate compliance action as appropriate.