Tax services of Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain and the USA conducted a joint investigation regarding “software to suppress electronic sales” – applications that falsify data on sales (Point of Sale, POS) in order to avoid tax evasion.
in announcements of the United Committee of Tax Heads (J5) It is said that the investigation “led to the arrest of 5 people in the United Kingdom, who allegedly developed and sold electronic sales suppression systems (Electronic Sales Suppress Software (ESS) at the international level.” The arrested began to be distributed according to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The sales suppression program is called Zapper and allows retailers to conduct separate accounting documents and wash money for one transaction. Sellers can hide and transfer this income anonymously, sometimes into offshore
The application works like this – the client in the restaurant ordered a steak for $ 60 and a bottle of wine for $ 100, and at that moment it changes the transaction so that it is recorded in the POS system as a “portion of chips for $ 10 and a bottle of non -alcoholic drink for $ 4”. The client pays $ 160 for his order and does not notice any fraud. The restaurant records an income of $ 14, and it can be washed $ 146.
According to J5, ESS arose in the UK, but the developers later exported it to other countries, including the United States. With the help of this software, thousands of enterprises were able to evade taxes, which is a large -scale fraud using technology.
Australian authorities conducted searches in 35 separate premises suspected of supplying and using software. J5 also suggested that sales suppression technology is also sold “as equipment that is connected to sales points as cloudy software or as integrated directly in”.