Australian taxation ombudsman recommends digital notification of death

Australia’s Inspector General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman Karen Payne released a report that investigated the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) systems and processes for managing deceased estates. The report recommends that the ATO seeks ways to collaborate with other agencies and service providers to simplify the experience in dealing with deceased assets (e.g. a death notification currently requires representatives of the deceased to report the death to multiple government agencies separately). More precisely, the report recommends that the ATO allows digital notifications of deaths, as well as to promote digital deceased estate tax file number application channels by adding functionalities to lodge through an e-government system called MyGov.