Up to 150 staff from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) have been investigated over their links to a $2 billion GST refund scam promoted on social media.
The details were revealed in a report by the Auditor-General into the ATO’s fraud control systems.
It found that several employees were sacked, and others face criminal charges.
In response to the allegations, an ATO spokesperson said, “Through Operation Protego, we stopped $2.7 billion in false refunds quickly, raising nearly $2 billion in liabilities, and secured over 120 convictions – while strengthening our systems and pursuing every dollar owed.”
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On Monday afternoon’s episode of The Briefing, we spoke with former Inspector-General of Taxation, Ali Noroozi, about how it happened, and what it means for the future of the ATO.
More than 57,000 people took part in the rort, including ATO staff. The tax office’s internal fraud team investigated workers who may have joined in or helped others.
The Auditor-General said the ATO’s fraud systems were not strong enough.
The report criticised poor coordination between teams and a lack of clear roles in handling large-scale fraud.
“I believe that the ATO has improved their systems and this had occurred whilst that was in progress or hadn’t been implemented yet,” Noroozi said.
“You need to act on the early warning signs quickly and at scale to stop the flow,” he said.
“Now, in this case, the media report suggests that up to 4.6 or 4.7 billion was fraudulently claimed, but the ATO managed to stop about 2.7 billion of that without the amount being given to would-be claimants.”
The ATO has accepted all five recommendations from the audit and promised stronger systems, clearer roles, and better fraud detection.
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