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JayATO(Community Support)Community Support
9 Apr 2026

Hi @TacoCat,


You only need to keep tax records for five years from the date you lodge your tax return. This includes documents that show what income you earned and how you worked out your deductions and any capital gains.


For capital gains tax, keep records for an asset from the time you buy it until five years after you sell. This helps show how you calculated any gain or loss.


How long we keep data matching records depends on the protocol it’s matched under. Our data matching program spells out more details about what we match and who we receive data from.  

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TacoCat(Initiate)Initiate
10 Apr 2026

Hi Jay,


You haven’t answered the question, nor do the ATO’s relevant pages, such as your link, answer the question. I will refine my question based upon paragraphs contained in a specific data matching page provided by the ATO. The ATO states:


“We will retain each financial year’s data for 7 years from receipt of the final instalment of verified data files from all data providers.”


Does this above paragraph mean that as long as the ATO keeps gaining information from yet another third party data provider, it can keep the data from the first data provider? For example, in 2026 data is gained from a third party provider about 2019. When the use of the data is about to expire in 2033, the ATO gains further data from 2019. Has it not now extended the expiry on the original data until 2040?


Secondly, the ATO states this on the same page:


“Retaining data for 7 years does not change our general compliance approach of reviewing an assessment within the standard period of review, which also aligns with the requirements for taxpayers to keep their records.”


Jay, I find this statement from the ATO misleading, the statement you are basically parroting in your reply.


Will you state for the record that an automated data matching protocol is legally prevented from doing the following?:


A tax payer trades a share in the 1985-1986 tax year. The trade is a capital loss. The tax payer throws out his records for that tax year in 2006. In 2026, flawed data-matching incorrectly flags the 1985-1986 trade as a capital gain. The automated system sends a letter to the tax payer giving 28 days to explain the discrepancy.


So Jay, please tell me why this couldn’t happen and why the tax payer was correct to throw out his records.






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