Greek Australians should voluntarily disclose unreported foreign income and assets before these are identified by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) activity, says an article published by Neos Kosmos, Australia’s largest circulation Greek newspaper.

The article in question, written by Sue Williamson of Ernst & Young Australia notes that, for many Greek Australians, ties with Europe remain strong both from a family and financial perspective.

These connections go back many generations and in many cases involve complicated financial arrangements. Numerous people have chosen to leave assets behind when immigrating to Australia, perhaps because they make regular trips back or believed that they may return to their homeland one day permanently.
Many families have never realized or understood that they should be paying Australian tax on the income earned from these assets.

“If your family is generating income offshore or holds overseas assets then there may be no better time to get your financial house in order without falling foul of the tax man,” states the article.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is stepping up its audit activity, examining data on Australians with offshore investments and bank accounts. They are looking at information from Australian and foreign banks on fund flows, interest and account balances and also speaking to informants about offshore accounts, and money transfers to and from offshore bank accounts.

The Swiss banks have already been asked to disclose client information to US authorities and new rules mean that soon they could be required to disclose globally. ATO wil use these information to pursue taxpayers who have not disclosed their offshore income. In the ATO’s view, it is only a matter of time before they discover undeclared offshore income.
The ATO has announced a new project that gives Australian taxpayers the opportunity to voluntarily disclose unreported foreign income and assets before these are identified by the office’s activity.

This amnesty offers significant penalty reductions and other generous concessions to encourage the disclosure of undeclared income, including income from assets and structures established by earlier generations. The deadline for making a disclosure is 19 December 2014.

The benefits of participating in the amnesty include:

1. The ATO will usually only assess tax on the undisclosed income for the past four years.
2. Undeclared income from more than four years ago should not be taxed.
3. The maximum penalty will be 10% and there will be no penalty where the income disclosed is $20,000 or less in a year.
4. The ATO will generally not initiate investigations for criminal prosecution for tax avoidance or refer taxpayers to another law enforcement agency.
5. The ATO will not generally audit the information provided.

Source: Neos Kosmos