Tax fraudster sentenced to 18 months for fraud against state and federal governments

Publisher
Accounting Times
Date published
May 2025

Relevant impacts: Government Outcomes Impact, Security Impact, Financial Impact.

Paolo Esmaquel has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for committing tax fraud, identity theft, counterfeiting, and defrauding social security payments. Ms Emasquel allegedly lodged 10 fraudulent business activity statements across 3 different identities, and falsely registered with the Tax Practitioner's Board as a tax agent to gain access to ATO systems and link taxpayers to her account without their consent.

Ms Emasquel defrauded the ATO of $51,464 through these methods, with a further $12,093 in attempted fraud. T Serious Financial Crimes taskforce uncovered this activity through an investigation that discovered multiple identity documents under different names, and a phone containing email accounts for these various false identities. The ATO has also worked with the Tax Practitioners Board to cancel the fraudulent tax agent registration Ms Emasquel obtained.

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Related fraudster personas

The Fabricator

The Fabricator invents or produces something that is false to dishonestly gain personal benefits.

The Exploiter

The Exploiter uses something for a wrongful purpose to dishonestly gain personal benefits.

The Impersonator

The Impersonator pretends they are another person or entity to dishonestly gain personal benefits.

Related countermeasures

Collaborate with strategic partners

Collaborate with strategic partners such as other government entities, committees, working groups and taskforces. This allows you to share capability, information and intelligence and to prevent and disrupt fraud.

Confirm identity

Confirm the identity or attribute of the individual. Evidence of identity should be collected and verified using policies, rules, processes and systems to make sure only known, authorised identities can gain access to information stored in networks and systems.

Authenticate identity

Authenticate customer or third-party identities during each interaction to confirm the person owns the identity record they are trying to access.

Prevent duplicates

Have processes in place to prevent, identify and correct duplicate records, identities, requests or claims.

Verify information

Verify any requests or claim information you receive with an independent and credible source.

Reconcile records

Reconcile records to make sure that 2 sets of records (usually the balances of 2 accounts) match. Reconciling records and accounts can detect if something is different from what is standard, normal, or expected, which may indicate fraud.

Audits or reviews

Internal or external audits or reviews evaluate the process, purpose and outcome of activities. Clients, public officials or contractors can take advantage of weaknesses in government programs and systems to commit fraud, act corruptly, and avoid exposure.

Coordinate disruption

Coordinate disruption activities across multiple programs or entities to strengthen processes and identify serious and organised criminals targeting multiple programs. It can also include referrals to law enforcement agencies for those groups that reach the threshold for complex criminal investigations.

Investigate fraud

 Investigate fraud in line with the Australian Government Investigation Standards (AGIS).

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