Bwahahaha!!! OZschwitz backpacker tourists rip off the taxman

* Tourists rort tax office
* Fake income claims
* "Free travel to Australia"

FOREIGN backpackers have discovered a way of ripping off the Australian tax system to get free travel down under.

The fraud involves putting in fake income claims, which result in them getting thousand of dollars in tax refunds - despite not having worked.

Knowledge of the lucrative fraud has spread by word of mouth through backpacker hostels in Australia and around the world.

They know they will have left Australia by the time authorities discover the refunds should not have been made.

The young travellers also know the amounts illegally obtained are small enough that it is unlikely to be cost effective for the Australian Taxation Office to bother pursuing them overseas.

Most backpackers involved in the fraud get between $4000 and $14,000 in tax refunds they weren't entitled to.

Almost 560,000 foreign backpackers visited Australia in the past year, most of them from Britain, and 251,000 of them came to Victoria.

The ATO is aware of the backpacker rort and successfully prosecuted 44 people for tax refund related fraud in the past financial year.

But many more than that escaped by heading home to their native countries before the ATO was able to discover the fraud.

One Melbourne company that fell victim was recently audited by the ATO.

The company wants to remain anonymous, but the Herald Sun is aware of its name and has verified the accuracy of what happened.

"We've just had a tax audit at our office," a senior employee of the company said.

"Fortunately, we are honest people so it only took about one hour and we have a clean slate.

"Three people claimed and received $4000-odd each from the tax department using our company's Australian Business Number.

"When July comes around they electronically lodge a tax return in which they make a fictitious claim they earned a certain amount and paid a certain amount of tax.

"The tax department then forwards into their bank account a return for part of the tax they supposedly paid.

"They withdraw that money and close the bank account and head back overseas - thank you Australian system.

"The tax guy said this is happening all of the time.

"They only find out about the fraud when companies lodge their group certificates some time later."

ATO deputy commissioner Michael Cranston yesterday said investigators were doing all they could to halt fraud.

"We've built additional checks and controls in to identify suspicious transactions," he said.

LNK

Bwahahaha!!! OZschwitz backpacker tourists rip off the taxman

Bwahahaha!!! OZschwitz backpacker tourists rip off the taxman

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

AnCaps' Laissez-faire Free Trade Zone