RSTP2031 - Meaning of ‘provide information’

RSTPA guidance on the meaning of ‘provide information’.

‘Provide information’ is defined in the context of the provisions relating to a taxpayer notice, third party notice or an identity unknown notice.

‘Provide’ in this context means ‘to give someone something that they need’. It indicates that the thing in question must reach us rather than simply being made available and us then having to go and get it.

'Information' has, amongst other things, been defined as:

  • knowledge acquired in any manner; and
  • facts about a situation, person, event and so on.

It does not include opinion or speculation. We cannot ask a person to create a document so that we can require the person to produce it by an information notice, but we can require a person to provide information.

‘Providing information’ can be answering specific factual questions, but information can also be provided by creating a document that did not previously exist in order to conveniently provide the information required. For example, it can cover computations, calculations, analyses, translations of documents written in a foreign language, and so on.

RSTPA 2014 sections 123-124 and 127

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RSTP2031

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