On 24 September, the Guardian in Australia reported that the Australian Tax Office claims it has been ripped off by as much as hundreds of millions of dollars under mass tax evasion schemes allegedly run by professional advisers. The article claims that Australia is in the grip of a new wave of tax evasion and money laundering allegedly orchestrated by unscrupulous firms of professional advisers, including accountants. The schemes involve “phoenixing” – the art of liquidating a company and allowing the directors to rise from the ashes in a new entity, free of debts – and prior to the Covid-19 crisis, a number of them were being intensively targeted by the ATO.
