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Millions of dollars lost in ATO myGov scams that 'rattle confidence' in the tax system (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The inspector-general of taxation is investigating the theft and hijacking of personal information that has allowed millions of dollars of tax fraud by professional scammers.

...

The inspector-general of taxation believes millions of dollars is being lost through fraudulent access to myGov ATO accounts
Once inside the account, scammers redirect tax refunds to their own bank accounts, sometimes creating bogus claims

...

"It does rattle confidence in the tax system," Ms Payne told the ABC's AM program.

"How many of those tax debts have been created because people have fraudulently accessed people's personal details to claim refunds they're not entitled to?

"How has somebody been able to infiltrate the tax system?"

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Tax agent here.

I've seen a bunch of tax payers fall victim to this. It's not sophisticated. Just answer people's secret questions to access their mygov accounts. That's it.

Thereafter it's trivial to request changes to a tax return that will generate a refund of $20k, whatever really.

It would be trivial for the ATO to intercept. A highschool student could write a database query to reveal the fraudulent changes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Sounds like we need a royal commission with all the trimmings then. The recommendations will be strongly considered.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Not really.

Cancel all mygov accounts that are using secret questions as 2 factor auth. Job done.

Most of the "scammers" are peoples junkie kids. I shit you not.

They can't / won't do that though because then you can't blame old / poor people for being old / poor and not being able to access services.