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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 3723 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
with the former owner also being required to attest to the purchase on the part of the transfer form lodged by the new owner; and the maintenance by the Department of Urban Services of current procedures and controls.
The Auditor-General has advised that these procedures and controls will result in a much better situation than existed before the audit and greatly reduce the need for the previous almost complete reliance on the Department of Treasury and Infrastructure's compliance activities. In accordance with the suggestion of the Auditor-General, the Department of Treasury and Infrastructure is in the process of developing compliance procedures and targets in greater detail with respect to motor vehicles. However, because of the highly sensitive nature of the compliance program, the Government does not propose to provide details thereof to the Assembly. Public knowledge of the program could enable taxpayers to tailor their operations and self-assessment of taxes to minimise or avoid taxes. As an alternative, and consistent with the comments of the standing committee in its review, the Government proposes to make the program available to the Auditor-General upon completion.
In general terms, the compliance program will take into account the following: Matters drawn to the attention of the Department of Treasury and Infrastructure through internal and external sources; random selection of registrations over a number of categories of vehicle registrations; review of values declared in respect of registrations selected, to determine the number and extent of undervaluations; extrapolation of figures to estimate potential revenue losses over the year, registration categories to be targeted and resources required to minimise and recover the losses; and structuring the education program to target anomalies and common errors arising from the sample, changes to legislation and policy and ad hoc issues arising during the year.
As with other taxes, to determine the appropriate level of compliance activity, the Department of Treasury and Infrastructure will continue to take into account resources available, cost effectiveness and success factors of litigation. Mr Speaker, the Government believes that the procedures and controls introduced at the point of registration and the compliance program currently being formalised in greater detail will address the concerns of the Auditor-General and the issues resulting from the review by the standing committee.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (3.33): For the information of members, I present the Government's response to Report No. 2 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety, entitled "Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Bill 1998". The report was presented to the Assembly on 30 June 1999. I move:
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