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Pennsylvania's Sales And Use Tax: Has Nearly $1 Billion Been 'Zapped' Away In Fraud?, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Pennsylvania's Sales And Use Tax: Has Nearly $1 Billion Been 'Zapped' Away In Fraud?, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Faculty Scholarship
The Sales and Use Tax is an essential part of Pennsylvania’s revenue profile. Not only is it the State’s second largest revenue source, it has historically played a critical role in reducing the volatility of Pennsylvania’s overall tax collections. The sales tax is also critical to the city of Philadelphia, and Allegheny County. During the current economic downturn both the revenue and structural attributes of this levy should be pushing it to the front of the tax policy line.
The two topics that should rest atop Pennsylvania’s tax policy agenda should be: (1) joining the Streamlined Sales Tax initiative and …
Massachusetts Zappers - Collecting The Sales Tax That Has Already Been Paid, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Massachusetts Zappers - Collecting The Sales Tax That Has Already Been Paid, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Faculty Scholarship
No other New England state is as vulnerable to Zappers as is the State of Massachusetts. Zappers and related software programming, Phantom-ware, facilitate an old tax fraud – skimming cash receipts. In this instance skimming is performed with modern electronic cash registers (ECRs).
Zappers are a global revenue problem, but to the best of this author’s knowledge they have not been uncovered in Massachusetts. A global perspective says: it is highly unlikely that Zappers are not in the Commonwealth – we just need to find them. In fact, using a Quebec template, tax losses from Zappers and related frauds in …
California Zappers: A Proposal For The Commission For The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
California Zappers: A Proposal For The Commission For The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Faculty Scholarship
California has not uncovered a single instance of technology-assisted cash skimming - there are no zappers, and no phantomware in California. Is this because Californians are not skimming cash sales with technology, or is this because the California technology works so well that the fraud cannot be detected?
The record in foreign jurisdictions is reasonable clear. Automated sales suppression technology is widely used to skim cash sales, denying the state revenues from consumption taxes that have been paid by the consumer, reducing taxable business profits, and funding a cash hoard out of which unreported employee wages are paid. Government studies …