The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) administers the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and in 2022–23 collected $81.4 billion of GST and raised an additional $6.1 billion in GST liabilities.

All Commonwealth entities are required to have fraud control arrangements in place to ensure proper use of public resources, minimise losses and maintain public confidence. GST fraud can undermine the integrity of the tax system, reduce the revenue available for the Commonwealth to make GST payments to the states and territories and penalise taxpayers who do the right thing.

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Australian Taxation Office’s management and oversight of fraud control arrangements for the Goods and Services Tax.

Key findings:

• The ATO’s management and oversight of fraud control arrangements for the GST is partly effective. The lack of clarity for roles and responsibilities, inadequate implementation of assurance requirements, and absence of a holistic and contemporary view of GST fraud risks undermines the effectiveness of efforts to prevent, detect and respond to fraud events in a timely manner and minimise fraud losses.
• The ATO has implemented partly effective strategies to prevent GST fraud. The ATO has established an enterprise framework for fraud, but it is not fit for purpose and is not operating as intended.
• The ATO’s processes to detect and deal with suspected GST fraud are largely effective. The ATO has implemented effective processes to confidentially report allegations of suspected fraud.