The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is concerned about departing sc457 visa workers and foreign students being targeted by tax fraudsters and therefore intends to undertake detailed investigations of DIBP records to identify the fraudsters, according to a report in The Courier-Mail.

It is reported that given the concern, the ATO will be sieving through the department of immigration’s databases under the data matching program to “detect, and deal with compliance risks within the visa holding population.”

An earlier report by the ATO indicated that, “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.”

According to that report, 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 report was scant and did not say if the main concern was over money laundering by organised criminal gangs or just the underpayment of taxes by businesses.

"It is believed criminals are brazenly asking for ­identification shopping list ­requests – such as tax file numbers – on some university notice boards," says the news report.

An ATO spokesman could not reveal how much money may have been scammed.

“We are … concerned that some temporary visa holders/students may be approached to sell their identity information and tax file number when departing Australia,” he said. The Tax Office had asked for details of visa holders and their sponsors.