simplelex/Aussie-Tax-Legal-Database

Australian Taxation Office Legal Database — Machine-Readable

60,000+ ATO rulings, determinations, and private advice. Structured CSV. RAG-ready on day one.

The ATO Legal Database spans 15 years of Australian tax law — private advice, interpretative decisions, public rulings, and compliance guidelines. It's all public. It's all messy HTML. Getting it into a format an LLM can actually use takes weeks of data engineering.

This dataset skips that. Every document is one CSV row. Every logical section is its own column. Source URLs included.

Files are updated automatically on weekdays when new ATO documents are detected.

If this dataset saves you time, consider supporting the project:

☕ Buy Me a Coffee

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Contents

• Dataset Splits
• Quick Start
• Schema
  • Edited Private Advice
  • ATO Interpretative Decisions
  • Public Rulings & Determinations
  • Practical Compliance Guidelines
• Use Cases
• Support the Project
• Source & Licensing
• Citation
• Terms of Service

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Dataset Splits

Split	Document Type	Est. Documents	Coverage
edited_private_advice	Edited Private Advice (EPA) — all years in one file	~50,000	2011–present
ato_interpretative_decisions	ATO Interpretative Decisions (ATO ID)	~10,000	All years
public_rulings	Public Rulings & Determinations	~2,000	All years
practical_compliance_guidelines	Practical Compliance Guidelines (PCG)	~200	All years

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Quick Start

import pandas as pd
# Load one split
df = pd.read_csv("edited_private_advice_all.csv")
# Filter to active (non-archived) documents
active = df[df["Is_Archived"] == False]
print(active[["Authorisation_Number", "Subject", "Date_of_Advice"]].head())

Multi-value fields (legislative references, ruling periods, related documents) use | as the internal delimiter:

# Explode pipe-delimited legislative references into one row per provision
provisions = (
    active["Relevant_Legislative_Provisions"]
    .str.split(" | ")
    .explode()
    .str.strip()
    .value_counts()
)
print(provisions.head(10))

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Schema

Encoding conventions

Convention	Detail
Multi-value delimiter	| (space-pipe-space) within a single cell
Empty values	Empty string "" — never NULL or N/A
Booleans	True / False
Dates	Verbatim as published by the ATO — no normalisation

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1. Edited Private Advice (edited_private_advice)

Private rulings issued to individual taxpayers, anonymised and edited for publication.

Column	Type	Nullable	Description
Authorisation_Number	string	No	Primary key. ATO-assigned identifier, e.g. 1-2ABCDEF.
Date_of_Advice	string	Yes	Date the private advice was issued, e.g. 1 July 2024. Blank for older documents.
Subject	string	Yes	Single-sentence topic description, e.g. Capital gains tax — main residence exemption.
Ruling	string	Yes	All Q&A pairs concatenated: Q1: [text] | A1: [text] | Q2: [text] | A2: [text].
Ruling_Period	string	Yes	Income years the ruling applies to: Year ending 30 June 20XX | Year ending 30 June 20XX.
Date_Scheme_Commenced	string	Yes	Date the relevant arrangement commenced. Blank when not stated.
Relevant_Facts_and_Circumstances	string	Yes	Full facts section, collapsed to single-space prose.
Relevant_Legislative_Provisions	string	Yes	Act/section references, e.g. ITAA 1997 s104-10 | ITAA 1997 s116-20.
Reasons_for_Decision	string	Yes	Summary plus all sub-headings: Summary: [text] | Detailed Reasoning - [Sub-heading]: [text].
Is_Archived	boolean	No	True if the document carries an archival disclaimer.
Source_URL	string	No	Full URL, e.g. https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?docid=AEA/1-2ABCDEF.

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2. ATO Interpretative Decisions (ato_interpretative_decisions)

Edited summaries of Tax Office internal decisions, released under FOI obligations.

Column	Type	Nullable	Description
ATO_ID_Number	string	No	Primary key, e.g. ATO ID 2010/101.
Status	string	Yes	FOI/editorial status note as published.
Title	string	Yes	Short title of the decision.
Issue	string	Yes	The question put to the ATO.
Decision	string	Yes	The ATO's answer.
Facts	string	Yes	Relevant facts and circumstances.
Reasons_for_Decision	string	Yes	Reasoning supporting the decision.
Date_of_Decision	string	Yes	Date the decision was made, e.g. 2010/06/15.
Year_of_Income	string	Yes	Income year to which the decision relates.
Legislative_References	string	Yes	Pipe-separated act/section references.
Related_Public_Rulings_and_Determinations	string	Yes	Related TR/TD/IT references, pipe-separated.
Related_ATO_Interpretative_Decisions	string	Yes	Related ATO ID numbers, pipe-separated.
Subject_References	string	Yes	ATO subject taxonomy tags, pipe-separated.
Business_Line	string	Yes	ATO business line that issued the decision.
Is_Archived	boolean	No	True if the document is archived/superseded.
Source_URL	string	No	Full URL, e.g. https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?docid=AID/2010/101.

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3. Public Rulings & Determinations (public_rulings)

Binding public rulings (TR, TD, IT, CR, PR) and legislative instruments issued by the Commissioner.

Column	Type	Nullable	Description
Document_Reference	string	No	Primary key, e.g. TR 2024/1.
Document_Type	string	No	Full type name, e.g. Ruling, Determination.
Document_Type_Code	string	No	Short code: TR, TD, IT, CR, PR, etc.
Title	string	Yes	Full document title.
Status	string	Yes	Final, Draft, Withdrawn.
Date_of_Issue	string	Yes	Publication date, e.g. 1 July 2024.
Date_of_Effect	string	Yes	Date from which the ruling applies.
Date_of_Withdrawal	string	Yes	Withdrawal date, if applicable.
What_This_Ruling_Is_About	string	Yes	Scope statement from the document.
Class_of_Entities_or_Scheme	string	Yes	Who or what the ruling applies to.
Ruling	string	Yes	The operative ruling paragraphs.
Examples	string	Yes	Worked examples from the ruling.
Appendix_Explanation	string	Yes	Explanatory appendix text.
Other_Appendices	string	Yes	Any additional appendices.
Previous_Rulings	string	Yes	Documents this ruling replaces, pipe-separated.
Related_Rulings	string	Yes	Related ATO publications, pipe-separated.
Legislative_References	string	Yes	Act/section references, pipe-separated.
Case_References	string	Yes	Court/tribunal cases cited, pipe-separated.
Subject_References	string	Yes	ATO subject taxonomy tags, pipe-separated.
ATO_References	string	Yes	Internal ATO reference numbers.
Is_Withdrawn	boolean	No	True if the ruling has been withdrawn.
Source_URL	string	No	Full URL, e.g. https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?docid=TR/TR_2024/1.

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4. Practical Compliance Guidelines (practical_compliance_guidelines)

Guidelines explaining how the ATO will administer specific areas of tax law, including safe harbours.

Column	Type	Nullable	Description
PCG_Number	string	No	Primary key, e.g. PCG 2020/2.
Document_Type	string	No	Final PCG or Draft PCG.
Title	string	Yes	Full document title.
Status	string	Yes	Current, Withdrawn, Draft.
Date_of_Issue	string	Yes	Publication date.
Date_of_Effect	string	Yes	Date from which the guideline applies.
Date_of_Withdrawal	string	Yes	Withdrawal date, if applicable.
Replaces	string	Yes	Predecessor document(s), e.g. PS LA 2011/18.
Related_Rulings_and_Determinations	string	Yes	Related ATO publications, pipe-separated.
Legislative_References	string	Yes	Act/section references, pipe-separated.
Summary	string	Yes	One-paragraph executive summary.
Purpose_and_Scope	string	Yes	Who the guideline applies to and why.
Background	string	Yes	Context and policy history.
Compliance_Approach	string	Yes	The ATO's stated enforcement stance, including safe harbour thresholds.
Examples	string	Yes	Worked examples from the document.
Appendices	string	Yes	Appendix content.
Other_Sections	string	Yes	Any additional named sections.
Compendium_Reference	string	Yes	Reference to associated ruling compendium, if any.
Is_Archived	boolean	No	True if the document is archived.
Is_Draft	boolean	No	True if the document is a draft.
Source_URL	string	No	Full URL, e.g. https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?docid=PCG/PCG_2020/2.

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Use Cases

• RAG pipelines — each row is a self-contained retrieval unit; chunk on Ruling, Reasons_for_Decision, or Compliance_Approach
• Legal NLP — classification, summarisation, and named-entity recognition on Australian tax law
• Legislative graph construction — explode Legislative_References to build provision co-citation networks
• Compliance tooling — filter on Document_Type_Code + Is_Withdrawn == False to surface current binding obligations

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Support the Project

This dataset is free. If it saves you time on data engineering, a coffee is appreciated:

☕ Buy Me a Coffee

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Source & Licensing

Data sourced from the ATO Legal Database (© Commonwealth of Australia). ATO public legal documents are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. This structured dataset is published by SimpleLex under the same terms.

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Citation

@dataset{simplelex_ato_rulings_2026,
  author    = {SimpleLex},
  title     = {ATO Tax Legal Rulings — Structured AI Dataset},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url       = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/simplelex/Aussie-Tax-Legal-Database}
}

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Terms of Service

Last updated: May 2026

What this product is

The Aussie Tax Legal Database is a structured dataset of publicly available legal documents published by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) at ato.gov.au. Documents include Edited Private Advice, Public Rulings, Determinations, ATO Interpretive Decisions, and Practical Compliance Guidelines, compiled into machine-readable CSV format.

Permitted use

You may use this dataset for any lawful purpose, including research, analysis, building applications, and commercial projects. You do not need to ask permission. Attribution is appreciated but not required for the compilation itself.

Source material and copyright

The underlying ATO documents are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. The ATO retains copyright in the original documents. This dataset is a structured compilation and does not claim copyright in the original source material.

Not legal or tax advice

Nothing in this dataset constitutes legal or tax advice. Documents are reproductions of publicly available ATO materials provided for informational purposes only. Always consult a registered tax agent or legal professional for advice about your specific situation.

Accuracy and currency

We make no warranties about the completeness, accuracy, or currency of the data. ATO documents may be updated, withdrawn, or replaced after the dataset was last scraped. Always verify against the ATO Legal Database for official or time-sensitive purposes.

No liability

To the maximum extent permitted by Australian law, simplelex accepts no liability for any direct, indirect, or consequential loss arising from use of or reliance on this dataset.

Changes

We may update these terms at any time. Continued use of the dataset following an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.