(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . After catching and jailing a few minnows, tax authorities worldwide must now go after the sharks [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-30 Failed Australian businessman Linden Phillips was sentenced last month to seven years in prison for unsuccessfully trying to dud the Australian Tax Office (ATO) of A$835,000 [US$532,000]. A few days earlier, Justin McCormick copped a year in jail after conviction for dishonestly getting less than US$70,000 from the tax office. McCormick, like Phillips, had registered a fake Australian business number and claimed refunds of the goods and services tax (GST) on purchases never made. Just last week, Wollongong businesswoman Rachel Saville was jailed for 20 months after pleading guilty to four counts of obtaining benefit by deception. She illegally collected US$47,000 in GST refunds and tried to obtain another US$132,000. Her appeal against the severity of the sentence failed. All these ATO operations – code-named Protego-Cassowary, Underpitch, Junglevine, Elbrus – have been highly successful. Operation Protego, initiated in response to widespread GST fraud, has alone prosecuted more than 56,000 individuals. Kudos to the Tax Office for these wins in court. Let’s hope they have a salutary effect on others planning similar dodges. The message should be clear – the Cassowaries will get you! Bigger fish to fry The reality remains, however, that most Australians jailed have been poor working crooks, not very good at criminality, and not at all rich. The successful tax cheats all live in huge mansions, drive Ferraris, wear expensive suits, are highly remunerated by multinational corporations and pay expensive lawyers to keep them out of prison. The ATO’s Serious Financial Crime Taskforce raided the Australian-American company Scale Facilitation in June while investigating an alleged $150 million tax fraud. That company had reportedly paid millions of dollars to consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) for advice on how its Australian and British businesses could evade tax. Earlier this year, an Australian parliamentary committee heard testimony from Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan that PwC was behind 15 schemes designed to help multinationals evade applicable tax laws. Jordan accused PwC of frustrating its investigations into schemes which, in total, put at risk $180 million [US$115 million] in tax revenue each year. The commissioner named three PwC clients that the Tax Office had taken to court. They were Glencore, AB InBev and the Brazilian meat processing company JBS. All are multinational corporations with annual revenue above US$50 billion. Over a decade, US$115 million a year is a lot of money. Well over a billion US dollars. But no-one has been jailed. Maybe Rachel Saville will reflect on that during her incarceration for grifting $47,000. The consequences so far for PwC of the shocking revelations in the parliamentary inquiry have been demotions or removal or early retirement of some executives and repaying some of their ill-gotten gains. Progress in other countries Unfortunately, experience worldwide confirms high profile business people routinely get off lightly. British executive Bernie Ecclestone, once chief of the global Formula One organisation, pleaded guilty to tax offences and agreed to repay 652.6 million pounds [US$792 million]. But no jail time. Longtime Trump executive Allen Weisselberg was convicted of organising decades of tax evasion by the Trump Organisation amounting to multiple millions of dollars. He was sentenced to five months in jail after a nifty plea deal. Those charges, if proven, normally require 15 years. In his judgment, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said, “I believe a stiffer sentence is warranted, having heard the evidence.” Weisselberg got out after 14 weeks. Also in America, former health services executive Joseph Nocito was sentenced last month to one year and one day in prison for defrauding the United States. That’s not long in jail – around nine months with good behaviour – for a 16 million dollar heist. Tax evasion is a lucrative multinational industry requiring global cooperation to combat it. The cheats are still winning easily. Getting them to pay their fair share will greatly improve the wellbeing of millions of other taxpayers. Stiffer penalties for the big money players is an essential next move. * This is an edited version of an article published earlier today in Independent Australia, available in full for free here: independentaustralia.net/... [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/30/2202471/-After-catching-and-jailing-a-few-minnows-Australia-s-tax-office-must-now-go-after-the-sharks?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/