ATO hits cheats and tax mistakes

A STAGGERING $47.8bn has been clawed back by the Australian Taxation Office in the past five years from tax cheats as well as people who had made mistakes on their tax returns, it can be revealed.

That amount includes unpaid tax from hairdressers and beauty salons, cafes and builders who were dobbed in for doing cash-in-hand deals or not declaring all sales.

The ATO has also lifted the lid on how it cross-references home loans and data matches with insurance companies to catch the wealthy who try to hide their yachts and art collections leaving “nowhere to hide”. On top of that, the Phoenix Taskforce has unearthed $1.73bn in unpaid tax since it was set up in March this year to target dodgy bosses winding up companies to avoid paying their debts.

The ATO-led Serious Financial Crime Taskforce has raised $1.562bn since 2015 including $748,775 from a NSW drug dealer who lived an “extravagant” lifestyle despite not filing a tax return for 20 years. The money was seized as the proceeds of crime and put towards his tax debt.

The usually-secretive Australian Taxation Office has revealed its “lifestyle assets data matching protocol” for wealthy tax frauds who lie about their income while having expensive cars in the garage and art works on the wall.

“This protocol means we look at data from different insurance providers for taxpayers who have accumulated assets such as fine art, private jets and yachts,” The ATO said.

“We then compare this information with what is reported on their tax returns. If there is insufficient income reported on the tax return, we will investigate further. “There’s nowhere to hide.” Among the biggest prosecutions was that involving tax agent and chartered accountant accountant Paul Enzo Bogiatto who was ordered by the Federal Court last year to pay $22.68m in penalties for promoting 21 tax exploitation schemes under which his clients claimed “grossly exaggerated or wholly unavailable” Research and Development Tax Incentive offset refunds.