The records of an estimated one million temporary visa holders, their sponsors and migration agents are expected to be scrutinised by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as part of a broad tax compliance campaign targeted at the industry, according to a recent statement issued by the ATO

RMAs are among those being targeted by the ATO to “detect, and deal with compliance risks within the visa holding population...Data from DIBP will be used in ATO risk detection models to select populations for administrative action relating to tax return integrity, income tax and goods and services tax non-compliance and fraud,” the statement noted.

It says that an analysis of previous data indicates that there is an elevated level of risk relating to non-compliance and fraud associated with this population. Based on those identified risks, the ATO intends to acquire visa information for visas granted in the period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2015 and future periods between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2017. This means previously acquired data for the period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014 will be refreshed in the new table structure in an effort to take advantage of opportunities with new risk detection models.

The investigations are expected to cover 457 visa-holders and sponsors, students and education providers as well as migration agents.

“These records will be electronically matched with certain sections of ATO data holdings to identify non-compliance with registration, lodgment, reporting and payment obligations under taxation laws,” the ATO said.

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The pressure is on for both applicants and tribunal members to help ensure that migration and refugee review cases are dealt with quickly.

Last month, AAT President Duncan Kerr warned that “Without sufficient numbers of members being appointed to the new Social Services, Child Support and Migration Review Divisions of the AAT, the work required in those divisions will suffer delayed hearing and backlogs.”

In a move to help clear the backlog of cases in the migration and refugee division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), the AAT’s President has issued practice directions to encourage quicker decisions.

The President’s directions on Conducting Migration and Refugee Reviews ‘encourage’ members and staff of the tribunal ‘to facilitate accessible, fair, just, economical, informal, quick and proportionate conduct’ of cases.

The directions specifically encourage oral decisions where possible but require that a record of the decision and reasons must be subsequently issued to both the applicant and the DIBP.

If your clients are taking the TOEFL iBT^® test for skilled migration or other visas, they need to know what to expect on the test, especially the Speaking section. 

What is the Speaking section like?

Police have seized $8.5 million worth of assets, including a 2014 Ferrari, a 2015 Range Rover, six properties and $180,000 in cash; and arrested and charged three men with a series of offences relating to an alleged immigration racket involving Australia Post delivery drivers.

The raids across Melbourne yesterday led to the arrest of Baljit 'Bobby' Singh (pictured right), Rakesh Kumar and Mukesh Sharma (pictured left) who now face charges of “defrauding the Commonwealth and falsifying documents including police checks and student records, in relation to two training colleges.”

“The AFP alleges St Stephen Institute of Technology, owned by Singh and Kumar, and Symbiosis Institute of Technical Education, owned by Sharma, are not providing education, but are in fact being used to source student visas for Indian students who then go to work as posties and parcel deliverers for Australia Post through Singh's labour hire companies. The colleges charge international students fees of up to $10,000 despite allegedly not providing any training,” said the ABC report.

The AFP estimates that students were charged over $9 million in fees while the colleges claimed approximately $2 million in government funding because of their Registered Training Organisation status.

Australia Post management has been implicated and under questioning for contracting the company which apparently had ‘at least a hundred workers…about 60 of them being on student visas’ according to  Joan Doyle, Victorian secretary of the posties' union the CEPU. The company had 16 Auspost contracts, four of which the ABC estimates to be worth $60,000 a month.

If a couple were to come into your office and tell you that they were legally married, had a child together, and had the results of a DNA test confirming that the husband was the father of the child, and they could tell you in advance that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) would accept that their relationship was genuine, would you think to yourself: “There should ultimately be excellent prospects of getting a partner visa approved for these clients?”

Well, perhaps you have heard of the famous song from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “HMS Pinafore” called: “Things Are Seldom What They Seem”! A recent decision from the AAT, 1409924 (Migration) (2015) AATA 3088 (15 July 2015) provides an illustration (surely in the realm of migration law, but also commonly in daily experience) just how accurate the title of this song really is. Or to put it another way, as RMAs know, “Life can be full of surprises”!

On the surface of things, the story of this couple’s relationship, while not without its complications, seemed straightforward enough. And, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, even if the evidence wasn’t sufficient to satisfy the Department about the genuineness of the relationship, it was strong enough to convince the Tribunal member. The true problem was lurking at a deeper level – the dreaded “Schedule 3”!!!!!