The ATO-led Serious Financial Crime Taskforce has put retailers and hospitality businesses on alert about using electronic sales suppression tools (ESST) to under report taxable income.
The ATO said that some businesses are connecting ESSTs to point-of-sale systems to permanently delete, re‑sequence or misrepresent transactions, reduce sales values and produce fake tax records.
It is also seeing ESSTs taking the form of cloud‑based software and linking to domestic and offshore payment platforms.
The ATO said that sophisticated networks of operators are developing and marketing ESSTs to small businesses, packaging them as an ‘all‑in‑one complete business solution’ with low commissions, website presence and an online ordering tool.
The taskforce has warned against the production, supply, possession, use and promotion of ESSTs, which has been illegal in Australia since October 2018.
It has encouraged businesses using ESSTs to come forward and make a voluntary disclosure rather than wait to be contacted by them and face the full force of the law.
To identify these businesses, the ATO uses intelligence and data on lifestyle indicators, bank information, small business benchmarks and tip‑offs from the community.
The warning follows the successful crackdown and action against 35 Australian businesses suspected of supplying and using ESSTs as part of Operation Flutter late last year.
The operation was a coordinated global crackdown by the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5), supported by Australian Federal Police officers in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Australian raids were timed to coordinate with those undertaken by J5 partners in the United Kingdom and United States.
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