The chairman of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), Brian Wilson, has all but admitted that FIRB has failed in policing foreign purchases of established homes, endorsing the transfer of surveillance and compliance functions to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). From The Australian:
…[Wilson] said the shift of the review of applications for residential real estate investments from the FIRB, a division of Treasury with a staff of 28 people, to the ATO in December would allow for much tighter oversight of FIRB rules.
