According to the ATO, it wants the new platform to be cloud-based, so it can be used for near real-time data storage, processing, consumption, insights, and analytics. “The ATO is striving to become a more data-driven client-centric organisation, using data and analytics to improve the administration of tax and superannuation systems,” it said in tender documents. “The ATO is collecting increasingly greater volumes of data from a wide variety of sources. To support ATO business decisions, this data must be curated and be discoverable, accessible, and usable to inform those decisions. This system is a grouping of capabilities that will provide curated business-ready data that will underpin ATO decision making, providing the basis for tailored client services and improved compliance activities.” Besides replacing current data and niche technologies, the new system, the ATO said, would help the agency organise data suitable to business needs; provide access to stored data for visualisation, reporting, discovery, data science, analytic and operational systems; facilitate manual interrogation, organisation, and provision of data; and support analysis, monitoring, and logging for supporting teams. Must read: Data breaches upping ATO fraud ‘red flags’ ATO added the delivery of the new platform would form part of its 2024 “aspiration” of having “streamlined, integrated, and data-driven decision-making to deliver improved and tailored client experience”. “A wide variety of organisations and institutions that deal with financial transactions are subject to Australian Government legislation and the Commissioner of Taxation’s information gathering powers. Information collection from a large disparate group, using a range of legal instruments, results in a variety of information types and varying data quality being supplied to the ATO,” ATO said. “This drives a need for semantic analysis and collation of data from many information suppliers, for example, bringing multiple streams of data together to form a coherent view which can be subsequently tailored for business-specific consumption.” ATO has proposed the successful tenderer would enter an initial three-year contract, with the option of three one-year extensions. Tender submissions close 8 October 2021. In May, the ATO said it was embarking on a multi-year transformation program to reshape how services are brought into the organisation. ATO chief information officer Ramez Katf said the program is aimed at modernising the agency’s IT outsourcing portfolio by “developing market-aligned and more flexible bundles”. “This is a reshape of how we get these services into the organisation. The technology ecosystem continues to evolve, and our outsourcing model needs to adapt and become future-ready,” Katf said. “Our aim is to provide greater opportunities for competition, delivering better value for money for the Australian community.”

ATO running out of ‘big’ tax avoidance cases after clawing back AU$1 billionATO wants to make it easier for businesses to receive emails and notificationsThere are 84 high-cost IT projects underway by the Australian government