The ATO is cool with scammers ripping off $557m in MyGov identity fraud

A whopping $557m has been stolen off the ATO and people entitled to a tax refund by scammers in the last two years. According to an ABC investigation, data from high-profile breaches like Medibank and Optus are being used to lodge fake Business Activity Statements and tax returns via MyGov that are then deposited into bank accounts in the names of those people that the scammers create using the stolen identities. Despite being fleeced of over half a billion dollars, the ATO told the ABC the existing setup is a "balance between the systems being easy to access for the majority of taxpayers, while being hard to access for those with criminal intent" and that "we are managing an acceptable level of risk". Half a billion dollars! In 24 months! It'll be a billion dollars soon! Risk my arse, this is just incompetence.