Australia publishes draft law to adopt the OECD's crypto tax reporting framework

Australia's Treasury has released draft legislation that would let the country automatically swap crypto tax information with other governments, Cointelegraph reported. The bill is open for public comment until Oct. 28.

What the draft does

The exposure draft, titled Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax information reporting, has two parts:

• It sets up the legal basis to implement the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) in Australian law.
• It introduces a separate domestic crypto reporting regime alongside it.

CARF was approved by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in August 2022 to tackle tax-evasion risks as crypto ownership grew. In broad terms it asks crypto service providers to collect information about their users and transactions and report it to tax authorities, which can then share it with the user's home country — similar to how bank account data is already exchanged.

How we got here

• November 2023: Australia first said it intended to implement CARF.
• Late 2024: the government consulted on how to do it.
• 2025–26 budget update: the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook confirmed plans for both CARF and a domestic regime.
• 2028: first international exchanges of crypto tax data expected.

Australia is one of 77 jurisdictions that have committed to adopting CARF.

What it means for users

For people using Australian exchanges, the practical effect is that their trading data will flow to the tax office more systematically — and, once international exchanges begin, data from overseas platforms can come back the other way. It fits a wider push in Canberra to bring crypto platforms under clearer rules; the corporate regulator is separately consulting on custody and capital requirements ahead of a 2027 rollout.