PRISONERS DOBBED IN TO TAX OFFICE FOR SUSPECTED FRAUD OFFENCES

Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence has warned Queensland prisoners who try to submit dodgy income tax returns that they will not get away with it.

Ms Spence has revealed that information relating to 60 prisoners has been passed on to the Tax Office for review.

An earlier project involving suspected prisoner refund fraud resulted in a stop on the payment of $1.8 million worth of refunds.

“Queensland Corrective Services has been working closely with the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and has referred each of these prisoners to the ATO,” Ms Spence said.

“The ATO has put a stop on the payment of these tax returns while investigations continue.

“Queensland Corrective Services and the ATO established a cooperative arrangement in 2000 on this matter, and this has since been adopted nationally.

“Prisoners are in jail for one reason – they broke the law. Many are serving lengthy sentences due to their disregard for human life and community safety.

“I will not allow prisoners to commit further crimes while they are behind bars.”

Ms Spence said prisoners had been referred to the ATO for submitting income tax returns after they had selected businesses that listed their ABN in the Yellow Pages.

Ms Spence said the prisoners – who then sometimes submitted numerous tax returns each – had claimed that they worked for the identified business, but had lost their group certificate.

She said other prisoners had also obtained details of businesses from external associates in order to make their claims.

“Typically the prisoners would try to claim an income of approximately $20,000 to $30,000 with a return claim of around $5000,” Ms Spence said.

“Their tax return was usually accompanied by false statutory declarations stating that they do not have their Group Certificates/Payment Summaries from this employment for various reasons.

“The returns usually had external bank accounts for the deposit of funds – and the prisoners would seek help ‘from the outside’ to access the money.”

Ms Spence said all outgoing prisoner mail addressed to the ATO is checked for suspicious or fraudulent information, and if suspect the matter is passed on to the ATO for further investigation and possible prosecution.

She said it was not feasible to put a blanket ban on tax packs being posted to prisoners.

“There are legitimate reasons for tax packs to be posted to prisoners, such as prisoners serving short sentences, who may have been employed before they were sentenced,” Ms Spence said.

“Alternatively, they may have had shares or dividends that require the lodgement of a tax return.

“In addition, if a prisoner is identified as having possibly breached State legislation, these matters are referred to the Queensland Police Service for investigation.

Ms Spence said the investigation and prosecution of tax fraud is an ATO responsibility and Queensland Corrective Services will continue to work closely with the ATO to refer all suspect activity to them.

Media contact:Alison Smith 3239 6218 / 0439 673 287