A 65-year-old man who allegedly avoided paying more than $2.57 million in tax-related liabilities and impersonated a member of the Australian Taxation Office has been charged with four offences following a joint operation led by the ATO’s Serious Financial Crime Taskforce (SFCT) in partnership with the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
The charges relate to the man dishonestly failing to declare the income and associated GST when he filed both a business activity statement in 2008 and an income tax return for the 2008-09 financial year. This meant he dishonestly avoided paying the $700,000 in GST the company had collected, as well as income tax of more than $1.87 million.
The ATO identified the alleged discrepancies during an audit in early 2012 and issued a garnishee notice to the company.
The man also posed as an ATO debt management director during a phone call to an accountant in 2018, to try to find out what questions the AFP had been asking about the matter.
“We are working hard to identify and stop anyone who tries to cheat the system or obtain an unfair advantage over their competitors,” said AFP detective sergeant Andrea Coleman.
ATO deputy commissioner and SFCT chief Will Day said the collaboration of the SFCT achieves results.
“We work together to catch criminals who attempt to defraud the tax and super system,” he said.
“We have a crack team of experts working together to share intelligence across multiple government agencies, domestically and internationally. Financial criminals who think they can cheat the system and get away with it can think again – no one is beyond the reaches of the SFCT.”
