For example, they can require your bank or your employer to give details of your financial transactions, or any other personal details that are relevant to your Centrelink entitlements. They also routinely match their records with other organisations including the tax office. This is called data matching.
Contrary to popular belief, Centrelink does not in fact have access to your bank account and doesn't monitor it when working out your payment rate. Instead, the rate of payment you receive from Centrelink is based on the assets and any work income you specified the last time you gave them your financial information.
Centrelink has very wide powers to thoroughly investigate deposits that have been made into your account. For example, it has the power to obtain your information from other government agencies as well as accessing information from banks, building societies and credit union accounts.
Centrelink do not normally tell you if they are investigating you. The initial phases of their investigation will be discreetly conducted by cross checking your financial information from your bank, ATO and even employer.
Reporting your income
If you don't report every 2 weeks, your payment will stop. We'll tell you which dates you must report on and when your income reporting will start. If you report late, your payment will be late.
If you have defrauded Centrelink, you may be charged under section 134.2 – obtaining a financial advantage by deception. If you are found guilty, the maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment. You may instead, or also, receive a fine between $10,000 and $100,000 and be made to repay the benefit to Centrelink.
Once your income balance is reduced to zero, any money you earn over $437 per fortnight will reduce your Centrelink payment by the amounts shown in the tables above.
If Centrelink suspect that you are claiming more social security benefits than you are entitled to they will investigate your situation. Centrelink may believe that you have not been honest with them because of routine data matching checks or due to getting a tip-off from a member of the public.
If you don't tell us, it may affect your payment. You may need to pay back money we've paid you. If you're dishonest in order to get a payment, you're committing welfare fraud.
The Federal Minister for Community Services, Mr Larry Anthony, today announced Centrelink has contracted 21 private investigation companies to help in the fight against serious welfare fraud.
For your Special Benefit claim you must provide bank statements for the last 3 months for all accounts you have. This includes any overseas accounts. If you have a partner, we'll also require bank statements for all accounts held by them. You'll also need to confirm your identity and provide a tax file number.
If you are just planning on spending the money that you withdraw, what you spend it on is important for Centrelink to know. If, for example, the money was spent on maintenance or capital work around the family home, it would not be assessed, as the family home is exempt from means testing.
We may select you at random to review your payment details. We may review your and your partner's details if you get one of the following payments: ABSTUDY. Age Pension.
Since many of your bank account information is already in the IRS' hands, either from interest earned and reported on an account or from making payments to the IRS, they already know where you do your banking and which types of accounts that you hold. It's true – you really can't hide anything from the IRS.
The information collected is being used to catch those cheating the system, but if you still aren't comfortable with a DHS employee snooping through your social media account, you'll need to update your social media settings. Without a doubt, the easiest social media website for Centrelink to monitor is Facebook.
Don't forget to keep records. We may ask you to show proof of your employment income, such as payslips.
What if I quit my job? If you quit your job, Centrelink may decide you are 'voluntarily unemployed' and you may have to wait eight weeks before you get paid. You won't have to wait though if Centrelink decides the work was unsuitable or that quitting your job was reasonable in the circumstances.
We may ask you to complete a report to verify details about a past or present employee. This helps make sure they receive correct payments or services from us. You will need to report on an employee's employment details if we request information from you.
We may notice you've been overpaid after you tell us of a change or complete a review. Once we know you've been overpaid, we check if you have a debt that you need to repay. You may not need to repay money if: we can offset the overpayment by deducting it from your next payment.
You and your partner must have no more than $5,000 in combined readily available funds. This includes any liquid assets you can sell. Liquid assets include cash you have on hand, money you have in the bank and financial investments you have. They also include gifts and other money available to you at short notice.
We aim to finish a formal review within 49 days. Some may take longer than this. It depends on the details of the case.
You can have paid work up to 29 hours per week. You can do this without losing your Disability Support Pension payment providing you still meet the income test. If your employment income reduces your payment to zero for 6 fortnights in a row, we'll pause your Disability Support Pension for up to 2 years.
Although the offence categories vary, centrelink fraud penalties for even the least serious form of these offences can be severe, with a maxium penalty for the least serious offence being a term of imprisonment for twelve (12) months.
Centrelink fraud is estimated to cost the Australian government approximately $3.5 billion dollars each year, in fraud, non-compliance or misreporting to the welfare system.
You can request a Statement of Debt for any 5 year period going back to 1998.