• Specifically, the goal is to explore collaborations of the UK Tax Authority (HMRC), the U.S. Tax Authority (IRS), and the Australian Taxation Authority (ATO) with international and local banks and:
• Determine whether these authorities use data from banks.

• Then, understand:
• How the collaboration is established, for example, through regulations, laws, agreements, or other means.
• How often the Tax Authority receives data from the banks (daily, weekly, monthly, as requested, or any other frequency).
• The information that is shared between the Tax Authorities and the banks (loan information, money that is in the banks, interest rates, or any other relevant information).
• The purpose of the collaboration (for example to improve services, improve fraud detection, improve decision-making).
• The initial research reveals that Tax authorities realize the importance of data for improving their organizations (improving services and the ability to find tax frauds).
• Tax Authorities gather as much information as they can from varying sources and assess customers' compliance by matching their fillings with this information. In a case where a person has income from an apartment but fails to inform the Tax Authority, collaborations with banks provides additional information.

• The ideal response is a case study for each of the countries (Tax Authorities), including answers to the five mentioned questions, with links to the resources used during research.
• The following sources have already been found and are helpful:
•  UK. 
•  Australia.

Data Availability

• The initial round of research indicates that data availability is adequate on data collaboration between Tax Authorities and banks.

Do the Tax Authorities Use Data from Banks?

1. The UK Tax Authority- HMRC

• Information is provided to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) by UK financial institutions like banks.
• HMRC has the legal power to obtain relevant information about taxpayers from third parties which include banks.

2. The U.S. Tax Authority- IRS

• The IRS relies on the Information Returns Processing system (IRP) for data collaboration with banks, comparing things like the taxpayers' stated income to the information provided by the third parties.
• The IRS can get information from banks and is legally mandated to do so.

3. The Australian Taxation Authority- ATO

• The Australian Taxation Office receives data from a wide range of sources, including banks.
• It validates this data and matches it against its information.
• Some organizations like banks have a legal obligation to report information to the ATO.
• The ATO can also access Australian bank statements, review, and audit them.

Summary

• Our initial hour of research focused on ensuring that the research question could be answered using publicly available sources and then providing salient and relevant data surrounding data collaboration between the provided Tax Authorities and banks. We determined that all three (HMRC, ATO, and the IRS) use data from banks.

• We can continue with research and provide case studies that fully answer all the questions provided for the request.
• We also identified other information in our first hour of research that is relevant to the topic. This will also be provided in the scoping section below.
• It is of note that while the initial hour of research does not allow us to embed graphics and other visuals, we can certainly do that for any subsequent research projects that are selected. This will enable us to provide visual examples/graphs/charts to add color and depth to the research.
• Please select one or more of the options provided in the proposed scoping section below.