The accuracy of the content is not guaranteed. Please rely only on the authorised document. Reports today suggesting privacy laws had been breached by the Tax Office are completely false, Tax Commissioner and Registrar of the Australian Business Register (ABR) Michael Carmody said. "Protected taxpayer information has not and will never be sold by the Tax Office," Mr Carmody said. "We strive to vigilantly protect the privacy of taxpayer information. This is the cornerstone of community confidence in Australia's tax system. "And contrary to media reports today, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has today confirmed that no investigation has been commenced. "We have had discussions with the Privacy Commissioner since November 1998 about the ABR and the ABN legislation and will continue to discuss these matters to ensure we comply with the Privacy Act. "As I have announced previously, and informed all businesses in writing, through the ABN registration guide we mailed to them in November last year, a limited range of publicly accessible information would be available through the (ABR). "The ABR is a register of all businesses and other entities who have an ABN. It also identifies whether a business or entity is registered for GST, is an income tax exempt charity or a deductible gift recipient. "People have a legitimate need to establish the bona fides of entities they are dealing with and they need to be certain those businesses have a legitimate ABN. Without this knowledge, the business may have to withhold 48.5 per cent of payments. "The objective of the ABR is to make it easy for businesses to conduct business with each other and deal with government by establishing a system for registering businesses so that they can be uniquely and reliably identified. "As we have always said, some public information on the Australian Business Register (ABR) is now available to the public to allow people to find out whether they are dealing with registered entities, whether those entities are registered for GST, or whether they are making gifts to legitimate charities. "The legislation The New Tax System (Australian Business Number) 1999 has always provided for the public availability of this information. This was explained in writing in the ABN registration guide (pages 8-9) and is also on the Business Entry Point (BEP) website, where businesses register for the ABN. "On the BEP website, the only business information available to the public is the ABN, its status, legal name, trading names (if any), State or Territory in which the business is registered, postcode, whether the entity is registered for GST or has gift deductible recipient endorsement and, in the case of companies, the ACN/ARBN. "This information does not include phone numbers," Mr Carmody said. The following is the full extent of the public information which will be held in the ABR and will only be available from 1 July to those paying $20 per record for an extract and 10 cents for any additional pages:
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