One of the terrific things about living in a parliamentary democracy like Australia is that there are safeguards in place to facilitate transparency of the Australian Government and public services. One powerful tool is the Freedom of Information Act, or FOI, which provides individuals or organisations with the right of access to documents held by many government agencies. By law, most public authorities have to respond to an FOI request within 30 days. Their response will either contain the information requested, or give a valid legal reason why it must be kept confidential. Note that the government agencies may levy charges for locating and making the information available, based on prescribed rates.
Here at Fix the Tax Treaty!, we’ve often wondered whether the Australian Government adequately considered the impacts on Individuals (vs businesses) when negotiating and entering into the Australia – US tax treaty agreements and the FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA).
We decided to find out!