| Project description | The Migrant Personal Income Tax (PIT) Data Integration project will use gold standard probabilistic linking to combine the Australian Government's Settlement Database (SDB) with Australian Taxation Office (ATO) PIT data. The SDB is compiled by the Australian Government from various departmental systems and a number of external sources, including Medicare Australia. The SDB is a consolidated database of people who have been granted a permanent or a provisional/temporary visa. The SDB generally excludes temporary visa holders. However, there are some records for people on provisional visas.The SDB is a repository of administrative data on applications for permanent residency visas from 1 January 1991. For most of this project, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) was the custodian of the Settlement Data Base (2009 to September 2013). In the final stages of the project, the custodianship of the SDB was transferred to DSS as a result of machinery of government changes at that time. The ABS appreciates the partnership and contribution of these agencies to the project, which could not have proceeded without their support.The outputs for the feasibility phase of the project are generic data integration project templates and a research paper released on 22 August 2014, Feasibility Study of Linking Migrant Settlement Records to Personal Income Tax Data (ABS cat. no. 1351.0.55.051) comprising of three main sections: the PIT/SDB linkage as a case study for linking between administration datasets; the suitability of the PIT dataset in the production of integrated statistics and possibilities for other PIT data integration projects; and the quality and usefulness of possible new statistics on recent migrants based on the PIT/SDB linked dataset. The benefits of the project can be considered to be twofold: 1. The linked dataset (Personal Income Tax Migrants Integrated Dataset - PITMID) will provide new statistics on recent migrants in terms of their personal income as well as lead to the production of new longitudinal data on the economic outcomes of recent permanent migrants who arrived on or after 1 January 2000. As well as wage and salary, the dataset contains income variables such as own unincorporated business income, investment income, superannuation and annuity income. A more comprehensive picture of the economic outcomes of migrants will assist policy makers and researchers to better understand the migrant experience and their contribution to Australia. This could also lead to the enhancement of existing migrant statistics, development of new statistics or changing methodology to reduce provider burden.2. The project will assess the ability to provide new statistics on the income of recent migrants. A more comprehensive picture of the economic outcomes of migrants will assist policy makers in DSS, DIBP and state agencies and could be used by researchers to understand the migrant experience better. This is particularly important given the prominence of Australian immigration policy in shaping future population growth, and the major changes that have occurred in migration policies over the last decade. Reports such as the Productivity Commission's Economic Impact of Migration and Population Growth (2010) and the Department of Treasury's 2015 Intergenerational Report: Australia in 2055 highlight the need for consistent and reliable data about the economic outcomes of migrants and their contribution to Australia.Please note that following the successful completion of this feasibility study, a new project will disseminate new statistics on the income of recent migrants using the linked data set. |
