Also, it seems that the ATO is auditing bullion dealers much more now due to the GST avoidance scam of not so long ago.
So they are able to scrutinize all buying and selling transactions and investigate any transactions that might raise suspicions.
I'm glad you brought this up.
My summation is that you were contacted by the ATO as the ATO was under the belief that the Bullion Dealer was doing the wrong thing.
The ATO has openly suspected that Bullion Dealers were complicit in organised cartels designed to siphon GST money from the ATO through a Carousel arrangement with a number of "Missing Traders". This has subsequently been shown to be incorrect. Indeed, during this period, a number of dealers and refiners were forced out of business by the ATO, even though they were innocent, through the use of garnishee notices, withholding of GST, and other heavy-handed techniques.
Rather than chase the "Missing Traders" who failed to remit the GST, the ATO focused on the scrap metal dealers. The dealers were both paying and claiming back GST as they were entitled to.
The ATO's argument with many dealers was that transactions were entirely fictitious and there was no metal at all. So I think in your case you were contacted to see if the transaction was real, and they were actually trying to get "dirt" on the dealer rather than yourself.
The ATO mishandled both the investigation and subsequent litigation. They were desperately trying to show that these dealers were complicit in some sort of nefarious activity. The enquiries that you received simply served to show the ATO that the transactions were indeed real.
During an "Audit", the ATO can ask for details of transactions to determine whether the business is calculating its tax correctly. They have no legal basis for then using this information to take any actions against the customer. The information is obtained only for the purposes of verification of the audited business, not those who are the other party in the transaction being verified.
