Skip to navigation Skip to content

Legal notice for Child Support access to Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data and systems 277-07110000

FAQ

This table contains questions and answers regarding when and how a Legal Notice must be issued to the ATO.

Item	Description
1	Question: What does the legal notice look like? + Read more ... Answer: Example Notice: The Commissioner is required - under section 16C of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 and/or section 150D of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 - to provide information, in the possession of the Commissioner, about the person/s directly or indirectly identified below in this request. I confirm that I am authorised by the Registrar or his delegate to give this notice, on their behalf and in their name, and that information is required by Child Support for 1 or more of the following purposes: To ascertain whether a person may apply for administrative assessment of child support To make or amend an administrative assessment of child support To ascertain the happening of a child support terminating event To facilitate the recovery of debts due to the Commonwealth under the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 To identify a person for purposes related to the purpose mentioned in (a), (b), (c) or (d) above
2	Question: How often must the electronic ATO Legal Notice be sent? + Read more ... Answer: The ATO and Child Support have agreed that the issue of a legal notice in order to access ATO systems will be valid for 1 day in respect to queries made about a particular customer. This includes, third party information relevant to that particular customer, that is related entities or individuals, can be accessed without sending another legal notice so long as the access supports the outcomes of the same business process.
3	Question: When an electronic ATO Legal Notice has been issued, does this action need to be documented and if so, where? + Read more ... Answer: Service Officers need to keep in mind the standard requirement to document actions and appropriate windows in which to document these actions, see Documenting Child Support information in Cuba.
5	Question: Will there be a record on Cuba to indicate that the ATO Legal Notice Icon has been pushed and the notice issued? + Read more ... Answer: A copy of the legal notice data record sent to ATO will be kept, but this will not be viewable within Cuba. A copy of the legal notice is stored so that a response can be made to any queries the ATO might have about notices not received. If there are any doubts regarding whether the notice has been issued prior to accessing ATO systems directly for information relevant to a particular customer, hit the legal notice button again.
6	Question: Are there any instances where the legal notice doesn’t need to be sent prior to accessing ATO systems directly? + Read more ... Answer: In all instances, the Service Officer must issue an electronic legal notice to the ATO prior to accessing ATO systems directly for information relevant to a particular customer. This includes, Service Support Officers conducting observations who are required to access ATO systems directly.
7	Question: How does an electronic legal notice get issued when conducting third party ATO searches? + Read more ... Answer: The obligation with the issuing of a notice applies to Child Support customers. ATO have an understanding of the level of work and searches that are undertaken with certain areas of the business, that is litigation and will be satisfied that a notice is issued against the customer. If the searches then lead to third parties in ATO searches the Service Officer must clearly document including the links to the customer and results and/or reasons for searching the ATO systems.