Personal Income Tax and Migrants Integrated Dataset (PITMID)

The Personal Income Tax and Migrants Integrated Dataset (PITMID) provides financial year estimates of the sources of personal income of migrants (i.e., employee income, own unincorporated business income, investment income, and other income).

The PITMID project initially began in 2013 with a linking feasibility study utilising 2009-10 and 2010-11 Personal Income Tax data.

PITMID combines the settlement records of migrants to Australia with personal income tax records. This enables more detailed analyses of labour market and fiscal contributions of migrants to the economy by visa class and type of personal income, allowing policy makers and researchers to better understand the migrant experience and their economic contribution to Australia.

The project is enabled through a partnership between the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Department of Home Affairs, and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

The data is sourced from Australian government permanent migrant data and Personal Income Tax (PIT) from the ATO. The Personal Income of Migrants, Australia methodology page contains detailed information about the linking methodologies and linkage results.

Further information about the PITMID linkage and the change in methodology in 2016 can be found in Research Paper: Personal Income Tax and Migrants Integrated Dataset (PITMID) 2011-12 Quality Assessment.

The project benefits include:

• Assisting policy makers to further understand, respond, and refine migrant labour market programs and economic policy.
• High quality Government data available to the public, which ensures improved transparency of the effects of Government policy and informs public debate on issues relating to migration and migrant settlement, without the additional cost or respondent burden that comes from establishing new statistical collections.

The ABS protects your privacy and is committed to keeping integrated data safe. The ABS respects individuals’ rights to privacy and is committed to keeping information safe and secure.

The ABS is subject to strong legislation protecting the confidentiality of information, including the Census and Statistics Act 1905 which makes it a criminal offence to breach secrecy provisions.

We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, and abide by the High Level Principles for Data Integration Involving Commonwealth Data for Statistical and Research Purposes.

PITMID results are based, in part, on tax data supplied by the ATO to the ABS under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, which requires that such data is only used for the purpose of administering the Census and Statistics Act 1905.

Personal Income of Migrants, Australia provides statistics on personal income of migrants, including employee income, own unincorporated business income, investment income, and other income.

Microdata: Personal Income of Migrants, Australia contains information about registration, pricing, and access to PITMID, as well as details about data items contained in the dataset.

Access and services provides an outline of how to apply for and access integrated data like PITMID.