MEDIA RELEASE (AU)

“Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) members strongly support measures to combat fraud and CA ANZ broadly supports the Inspector General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman (IGTO) recommendations," said Susan Franks, CA ANZ Senior Tax Advocate.

"This interim report by the IGTO vindicates CA ANZ member concerns about security controls around tax refunds and has found that greater authorisation checks should be included in Australian Taxation Office (ATO) systems.

"Many members have been questioning whether low hanging fruit, such as checking whether changes to bank account details were authorised, have been appropriately implemented by the ATO, before putting tax agents through the extremely administratively burdensome process of client agent linking.

"With more than 9.7 million Australians affected by cyber breaches of high-profile corporates, a great many taxpayers are exposed to identity fraud.

"Substantial amounts of money flow in and out of the ATO and there is an expectation that ATO systems at least meet the security practices that are utilised by major financial institutions,” said Susan Franks.