Australia releases crypto tax-reporting draft with separate international and domestic tracks

Australia’s Treasury has released draft legislation for crypto-asset tax reporting, setting out separate international and domestic reporting tracks. The consultation opened October 15 and closes October 28, giving stakeholders a new legislative text to examine after earlier implementation commitments.

The exposure draft, titled Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax information reporting, has three parts: an enabling framework for international reporting arrangements, a domestic crypto reporting regime and changes to the Common Reporting Standard. It remains a proposal, with further rules needed to put important details into operation.

For international arrangements, Part 1 would allow regulations to designate a reporting framework and give the minister power to make implementation rules. Those rules could specify reporting entities, transactions, information, reporting periods, due-diligence requirements and administrative penalties. That structure matters because publishing this bill does not itself establish every detailed Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework obligation.

The explanatory material says the intended international CARF timetable would collect information for calendar 2027, with the first reports to the Australian Taxation Office in 2028. Treasury describes the framework as supporting reciprocal information exchange with other tax authorities.

The domestic track focuses on Australian-resident customers. Part 2 would require providers of registrable virtual asset services to report relevant exchanges or transfers undertaken by, for or on the instructions of those customers. The draft applies that amendment to transactions in financial years beginning on or after July 1, 2027, or another reporting period specified by the tax commissioner that begins from that date.

Treasury’s explanatory material says quarterly domestic reporting is intended. It also says an instrument would be needed to specify a reporting period other than the financial-year default. Businesses therefore need to distinguish the draft’s application provision from the reporting settings still to be made.

KPMG’s February 19 briefing had already described Australia’s commitment to introduce CARF and amended Common Reporting Standard legislation during 2026. That earlier professional analysis provides background; it does not assess today’s draft.

The package also proposes extending Common Reporting Standard coverage to specified electronic-money products, central-bank digital currencies and indirect crypto exposure. The immediate development is a consultation on the legal reporting framework. Final legislation and the associated rules remain the next steps to verify.

Sources

Crypto asset tax transparency draft consultation · Treasury exposure draft: Tax information reporting · Treasury exposure-draft explanatory material · KPMG: Australia’s commitment to implement CARF and CRS2.0