ATO cracks down on super offenders
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has seen more than 360 convictions for tax and superannuation offences in the second quarter of this year.
This follows nearly 500 convictions in the first quarter.
Tax Commissioner Michael D'Ascenzo said more than 360 people were convicted between 1 April and 30 June for offences ranging from failing to lodge tax returns to more serious misconduct (such as identity fraud, refund fraud and defrauding the Commonwealth).
"We take all forms of tax evasion and intentional non-compliance seriously," he said. He added that the ATO had upgraded its technology and had new risk filters in place to help detect over-claimed or fraudulent income tax refunds.
"We extensively cross-reference information reported in tax returns with information provided by third parties to identify errors or discrepancies," said D'Ascenzo. "Last year we matched over 500 million transactions."
D'Ascenzo also noted that investigations by the Project Wickenby Taskforce into abusive secrecy haven arrangements led to two of the convictions.
The ATO stated that while it handles a number of prosecutions directly, the most serious cases are referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) and 18 cases were referred to the CDPP in the second quarter. All resulted in successful convictions for serious fraud and tax evasion offences, such as: GST fraud, refund and identity fraud, dealing in the cash economy, deliberately concealing income, and operating as an unregistered tax agent.
Examples of these convictions include that of a Tasmanian man who was found guilty in the Supreme Court of skimming money from his company and avoiding paying tax of $334,595. He was sentenced to two years in prison, with a non-parole period of one year. In another case, a NSW woman and her partner were sentenced to six years and 15 months in jail respectively. The woman was found guilty in the Lismore District Court of illegally obtaining $607,000 through energy grants credit schemes and GST fraud, while her partner was sentenced for laundering the money.
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