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Small businesses using software to digitally cook the books have been put on alert, as investigators led by the Australian Taxation Office crack down on the use of electronic sales suppression tools (ESSTs).
The Serious Financial Crimes Taskforce (SFCT) says it is aware of businesses using advanced programs to alter sales records and provide false statements to the tax office, with the ultimate goal of paying less tax.
Some ESSTs connect to point of sales systems to delete, re-sequence, or fudge transactions, and have the capacity to artificially lower sales volumes and churn out false tax records.
Others operate through the cloud, enabling access to offshore payment platforms to skirt Australian tax rules.
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