Business owner swindles tax withheld from his employees
Date published
November 2017
Relevant impacts: Financial impact, industry impact and business impact
A business owner under-reported tax withheld from his employees to a total value of $173,819 to the Australian Taxation Office. The business owner declared he had deducted $84,158 in Pay As You Go tax from his employees' wages when employee tax returns showed he actually withheld $257,977. The man was found guilty of one count of fraud under the Criminal Code 1995 (Cth) and sentenced to 2 years in prison.
Related fraudster personas
Related countermeasures
Use declarations or acknowledgments to both communicate and confirm that a person understands their obligations and the consequences for non-compliance. The declaration could be written or verbal, and should encourage compliance and deter fraud.
Verify any requests or claim information you receive with an independent and credible source.
Analyse data to improve processes and controls, increase payment accuracy and find and prevent non-compliance, fraud and corruption.
Match data with the authoritative source and verify relevant details or supporting evidence.
Services such as the Identity Matching Service can be used to verify identity credentials back to the authoritative source when the information is an Australian or state and territory government issued identity credential.
This countermeasure is supported by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's Guidelines on data matching in Australian government administration.
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