The Tax Office this tax time revealed it has undertaken the task of matching income declared on business tax returns against credit and debit card records that have been generated by certain banks and financial institutions throughout the 2014-15 financial year.

As part of the unprecedented blitz, the regulator will ask major Australian financial institutions for the online purchase details of almost 90,000 business-owning taxpayers.

Those details will be used to match around 900,000 sets of transactions with merchant accounts to determine the real amount and value of transactions processed in that same year.

The Tax Office said in a statement the blitz aims to ensure “merchants are correctly meeting their taxation obligations in relation to their business income”.

“These obligations include registration, lodgement, reporting and payment responsibilities.”

The Tax Office said businesses should make voluntary disclosures to correct mistakes before the sweep begins.

Here’s a list of the banks and financial institutions earmarked for data collection:

• American Express Australia
• Australia and New Zealand Banking Group
• Bank of Queensland
• Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
• BWA Merchant Services
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia
• Diners Club Australia
• National Australia Bank
• St George Bank
• Tyro Payments
• Westpac Banking.

Contact us if you wish to understand more about the Tax Office’s recent data matching activities.