An Australian Taxation Office employee who worked to identify GST fraud is facing trial charged with claiming "hundreds and thousands of dollars" in fraudulent GST refunds.
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Todd Patrick Richard Ryan, 44, and Amy Celia Hill, 35, have each pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage from the Commonwealth over a few months in 2011.
Opening the case in the South Australian District Court on Monday, prosecutor Jane Abbey said the pair told the ATO they owned a number of companies and had purchased "millions of dollars" in goods and services.
She said they then claimed refunds for the GST portions of the purchases.
"That means, over a few months, they claimed hundreds and thousands of dollars were owed to them for GST that they had paid out," she said.
"But, on the Crown case, the companies had not made any real purchases, the purchases that they were claiming they had made to the ATO were fake.
"No refund was in fact owed to them and they knew it."
Ms Abbey said Ryan had been employed by the ATO since about 2007, and by 2010 he was working on a GST phone campaign.
"He was really following up with (people) whether this was a genuine need to be reporting on GST," she said.
"He could ask questions, give advice where needed and the purpose of that was, at least in part, to identify any fraudulent registrations."
Jurors heard Ryan had "something of a financial crisis" in the lead-up to the alleged fraud, and a repossession order was made on a house where his mother lived in April 2011.
Ms Abbey said he was told he needed to be out of the house by April 18 and, two days later, he lodged his first fake activity statement.
She said that was when he decided how he would get the money he needed.
"He would raise it by lying to the ATO," the prosecutor said.
Ryan and Hill were in a relationship and had moved in together by 2011, and it is alleged she became involved after he began creating companies.
Craig Caldicott, for Hill, said the case was about "states of mind" when certain events occurred.
"Things, knowledge, also changes down the track, so it might be important to bear that in mind," he told the jury.
The trial continues.
Australian Associated Press
