The Australian Tax Office (ATO) will be targeting up to 90,000 small businesses over the next three months as part of a major compliance operation.

The ATO will be obtaining details from 11 financial institutions including American Express, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ for credit card payments received by small business for the 2014-15 financial year.

The credit and debit data obtained will be matched against ATO records to identify businesses not meeting their tax obligations.

The ATO has outlined a number of objectives for the operation. These include: promotion of voluntary compliance with obligations, identification of liquidated businesses still trading and building intelligence about business.