Recently, China Taxation News published an article entitled "The sharp sword is high to deal with iron cases, so that the "false self-employment, real agent" tax fraud has nothing to hide". In the article, Company Z was found to have subjective fault by tax authorities and three judicial organs for implementing the behavior of "fake self-employment and real agency", which in turn constituted tax fraud. In the author's opinion, this viewpoint is inappropriate, based on which, this article starts from the practice case, whether the implementation of "fake self-employment, real agency" is equivalent to tax fraud? The subjective element of tax fraud at the level of administrative penalty is "knowledge" or "subjective fault" to analyze, and then warn the foreign trade enterprises to be alert to the risk of passive involvement in tax fraud in conducting business for readers' reference.

I. Company Z's implementation of "fake self-management and real agency" was finally recognized as tax fraud by the Supreme Court.

(i) The situation of the case which lasted for 7 years

1. Process of the case

Company Z was established in June 2000 as a foreign trade enterprise, mainly engaged in self-supporting and agency import and export business. in July 2017, the former Zhejiang Provincial State Taxation Inspection Bureau received a letter of concurrence from a foreign tax authority, which showed that the VAT invoices obtained by Company Z from Company A and Company B were deemed to be fraudulently issued. The Inspection Bureau investigated Company Z accordingly and found that Company Z used the VAT invoices obtained from Companies A and B for applying for export tax refund. At the same time, the cooperation agreement between Company Z and Companies A and B stipulated that Company Z declared for export before obtaining the VAT invoices. To sum up, the Inspection Bureau determined that Company Z was suspected of tax fraud and cooperated with the public security authorities to handle the case.

After collecting and fixing evidence through the case-handling authorities, the tax task force determined that: during the period from May 2015 to April 2016, Z Company provided the information of export goods without documents to others by Xu Mou, the actual controller of A and B Company, applied for customs clearance for export in the name of self-supporting, issued false invoices and false foreign exchange settlement, and accordingly applied for tax rebates from tax authorities, and the behavior of obtaining more than 16 million RMB of export tax rebates constituted tax fraud. The behavior of obtaining export tax refund amounted to more than 16 million yuan, which constituted tax fraud. The Tax Inspection Bureau submitted the case to the Grand Review Committee for hearing, and finally determined that Company Z constituted fraudulent export tax refund, recovered Company Z's tax refund and issued a Notice of Tax Administrative Penalty Matters. As a result, there were many rounds of exchanges between Company Z and the tax authorities on whether Company Z constituted tax fraud.

2. Legal Remedy Process

Company Z was not satisfied with the above Notice of Tax Administrative Penalties and applied for a hearing with the tax authorities, which decided to reopen the case and further improve the evidence, and obtained the judicial instrument that Xu, the person associated with the case, had been convicted of fraudulent export tax rebate. The facts of tax fraud violation identified in the instrument were consistent with the facts of violation of Company Z. Accordingly, the tax authorities issued the Decision on Tax Processing and Decision on Tax Penalty to Company Z in October 2019, which concluded that there was a tax fraud violation on the part of Company Z. The company was required to recover the tax and impose a fine of double the amount of the tax that was fraudulently obtained, and at the same time, the clues of the tax-related crime were transferred to the public security.

Company Z disagreed and applied for reconsideration to the SAT in December 2019, and the SAT upheld the penalty decision. company Z further filed an administrative lawsuit with the Hangzhou Intermediate Court in November 2021, which upheld the penalty decision. company Z filed an appeal with the Zhejiang Provincial Higher Court in June 2022, and the Higher Court rendered a final judgment in December 2022 that rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.

Company Z filed a request for retrial with the Supreme Court in May 2023, and in November 2023, the Supreme Court heard the case and finally rejected Company Z's request for retrial. Thus, this case has gone through administrative reconsideration, first trial, second trial and retrial proceedings, and finally ended with the result that Company Z constituted tax fraud.

(ii) Points of contention of the case

1. Company Z's view

Company Z considered that there was dereliction of duty in its management in the course of implementing the agency export business in the name of self-managed export, but it did not have the subjective motivation and intention to cheat tax, and should not be recognized as cheating tax.

2. Views of the State Administration of Taxation

As a foreign trade enterprise specializing in export business, Company Z, knowing that the agency export business could not be declared as export tax rebate in the name of self-owned export business, still packaged the agency business as self-owned business and obtained the export tax rebate, there was a subjective fault, and it was not improper for the Inspection Bureau of Zhejiang Taxation Bureau to find that Company Z constituted tax fraud.

3. Views of Hangzhou Intermediate Court and Zhejiang Provincial High Court

Company Z, as the "supply unit" in the false transaction and the "taxpayer" clearly recorded in the declaration materials, objectively committed the illegal act of tax fraud and should be punished according to the law.

4. Views of the Supreme Court

Company Z, as a company with rich experience in foreign trade business for a long time, allowed Xu to handle the export and tax refund business in the name of Company Z, and the relevant formalities were completed by Xu, which was in violation of the "Circular of the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Commerce on Further Standardizing the Order of Foreign Trade and Export Operation and Effectively Strengthening the Management of Tax Refunds (Exemptions) for Exported Goods" ("Document No. 24 of the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Commerce"). Company Z did not take corresponding risk prevention measures on the premise that its staff had already suspected that the export business in question was collecting foreign exchange exceptionally fast, and that the foreign personnel personally came to urge for the settlement of remittances and other abnormal behaviors, but still counted down the invoicing amount according to the amount of foreign exchange collected and notified Xu to issue a large number of invoices, which was a violation of the tax collection and management norms. His behavior was illegal and culpable in terms of tax collection and management norms.

(iii) Summary and Analysis of the Points of Dispute

As can be seen from the above, Company Z believes that even if it has committed the act of "fake self-supporting and real agency", it does not constitute tax fraud in the absence of intent to do so. The tax authorities and judicial authorities believe that foreign trade enterprises engaged in export business for a long time must know that "false self-management, real agent" can not declare tax rebates, and it can not declare export tax rebates for the business, which indicates that there is a subjective fault, with culpability. In the author's opinion, there are two issues that need to be further analyzed before the above dispute can be resolved. First, is the implementation of "fake self-management, real agency" equal to the objective behavior of tax fraud? Secondly, is the subjective element of cheating export tax rebate at the level of administrative penalty "knowledge" or "subjective fault"? Next, on these two issues to discuss.

II. the export enterprises to implement the "false self-management, real agent" behavior, does not belong to the tax fraud behavior

(i) "Fake self-management, real agent" specific performance behavior

The State Administration of Taxation (2006) No. 24 and the Circular on the Policies of Value-added Tax and Consumption Tax on the Export of Goods and Services (Cai Shui [2012] No. 39, hereinafter referred to as "Cai Shui [2012] No. 39") have made provisions for the behavioral manifestations of "fake self-management and real agency", which are specific. The behavioral manifestations of "fake

1	Handing over the blank customs declaration for exported goods, export receipt and cancellation slip and other tax refund (exemption) vouchers to units or individuals other than the freight forwarding company or customs broker that has signed the entrustment contract, or the freight forwarding company designated by the overseas importer (providing contractual agreements or other relevant proofs)
2	Export in the name of self-supporting, the export business is essentially by the enterprise and its investment in enterprises other than the unit or individual operating in the name of the export enterprise to complete the operation
3	Export in the name of self-employment, the export of the same batch of goods signed both the purchase contract, and signed the contract (or agreement) of the export agency
4	Export in the name of self-management, but does not bear the quality of exported goods, collection or one of the risks of tax refunds, that is, the quality of exported goods does not bear the buyer's responsibility for claims (except for those who agree to bear the responsibility for the quality of the contract); does not bear the responsibility for failure to collect the payment on time and lead to the failure of the responsibility for the write-off (except for those who agree to bear the responsibility for the collection of the payment of the contract); does not bear the responsibility of not refunding taxes due to the declaration of the export tax rebate (exemption) of the information, documents and so on the emergence of problems The responsibility for non-refund of tax caused by the problems in the data and documents for declaration of export tax refund (exemption)
5	Not substantially involved in export business activities, accepting and engaging in other export business introduced by intermediaries, but still exporting in the name of self-management

 

According to the above provisions, it can be seen that the essence of "fake self-management and real agency" is that the export enterprise does not substantially implement or participate in the export business, lacks supervision and examination of the export business, and appoints a third person to manipulate the business development. In this case, the export enterprise is easy to be used by the tax cheating molecules, and passively implemented the behavior of cheating export tax rebate; at the same time, from the perspective of supervision of tax authorities, due to the above business, the "subject of declaration of export tax rebate" and the "subject of actual export" have occurred. At the same time, from the perspective of supervision of tax authorities, due to the deviation of "the subject of declaration of export tax refund" and "the subject of actual export" in the above business, it is difficult for tax authorities to supervise them, and to a certain extent, it is easy to occur the phenomenon of tax cheating cases due to lack of supervision. Therefore, based on the consideration of preventing and controlling the occurrence of tax fraud, the state prohibits the behavior of "fake self-supporting and real agency".

In the above case, Company Z exported under its own name, but the actual export business was carried out by Xu, which was in line with the situation regulated by Guo Shui Fa (2006) No. 24 and Cai Shui [2012] No. 39; in other words, Company Z's behavior belonged to the category of "Fake Self-supporting, Genuine Agent". In other words, the behavior of Company Z belongs to the category of "fake self-employment, real agency". However, whether Company Z's behavior of "fake self-employment, real agency" inevitably constitutes tax fraud needs to be further explored.

(ii) Direct legal consequences of "fake self-management and real agency": refunding the refunded tax and taxing the tax as if it were domestic sales.

Document No. 24 of Guo Shui Fa (2006) and Document No. 39 of Cai Shui [2012], etc., which stipulate the legal consequences of the implementation of the behavior of "fake self-employment and real agency", namely:

1	Once discovered, the refunded (exempted) tax of the business shall be recovered, and the non-refunded (exempted) tax shall no longer be processed; and the value-added tax shall be levied as if it were taxed on the domestic sales of goods
2	In case of fraudulent export tax rebates, the tax authorities shall recover the tax rebates fraudulently obtained and impose a fine of more than double and less than five of the tax rebates fraudulently obtained; and the tax authorities at or above the provincial level (including provincial level) shall, upon approval, stop its right to export tax rebates for more than half a year. During the period of stopping the right to export tax rebate, the enterprise shall not apply for export tax rebate (exemption) for the goods exported by itself, entrusted or agent
3	If it is suspected of constituting a crime, it shall be transferred to the judicial organs for investigation of criminal responsibility according to law

From this, it can be seen that the legal consequences of the implementation of the act of "false self-supporting and real agency" are divided into three levels, namely, violation, offense and crime, and have a progressive relationship. At the same time, according to the above provisions, the direct legal consequences of the implementation of "fake self-management, real agent" behavior is to return the refunded tax and pay VAT as if it were domestic sales. The expression "fraudulently obtaining export tax refund" shall be dealt with in accordance with the relevant provisions on tax cheating, which precisely indicates that the implementation of the behavior of "fake self-management and real agency" is not one of the behaviors of fraudulently obtaining export tax refund, and whether it constitutes tax cheating still needs to be judged as to whether the subjective and objective aspects satisfy the constitutive elements of tax cheating. Whether it constitutes tax fraud or not still needs to be judged whether the subjective and objective aspects fulfill the constitutive elements of tax fraud.

(iii) the implementation of "fake self-management, real agent" is not equal to tax fraud, should be cut for responsibility

As can be seen from the legal consequences of the foregoing, although the export enterprise has implemented the behavior of "fake self-management, real agent", but only in the case of "fraudulent export tax rebates", it may be subject to administrative tax penalties or criminal penalties. Therefore, the implementation of "false self-employment, real agent" behavior is not equal to tax fraud. How does "fake self-management, real agent" constitute tax fraud? In the author's opinion, it is necessary to find the answer from the existing legal provisions.

At present, Article 66 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law and Article 204 of the Criminal Law do not stipulate the specific behavior of tax cheating, but only stipulate in principle "false export declaration or other deceptive means". The "Interpretation of the Two High Committees on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Endangering Tax Collection and Administration" (Legal Interpretation [2024] No. 4, hereinafter referred to as the "Judicial Interpretation of the Two High Committees"), although it has made provisions on the "False Declaration of Export" and "Other Deceptive Means", it has not provided for specific acts of tax fraud. Although the "False Export Declaration" and "Other Deceptive Means" have been stipulated, the behavior of "False Self-employment, Real Agency" is not involved. Only in the original "Supreme People's Court on the trial of criminal cases of fraudulent export tax rebates on the specific application of the law on a number of issues of the Interpretation" (Legal Interpretation [2002] No. 30, hereinafter referred to as the "judicial interpretation of tax fraud"), the "false self-employment, the real agent" to make specific provisions. The Judicial Interpretation on Tax Fraud Therefore, although the Judicial Interpretation on Tax Fraud is no longer in effect, it can still guide the handling of future administrative and criminal cases by exploring its legislative purpose and intent.

Article 6 of the Judicial Interpretation on Tax Fraud stipulates that "If a company or enterprise with import and export operation rights, knowing that others intend to cheat the state export tax rebate, still violates the state's regulations on import and export operation and allows others to bring their own customers, sources of goods, bills of exchange and declare customs on their own, so as to cheat the state export tax rebate, the company or enterprise shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 1 of Article 204 and Article 211 of the Criminal Law". Conviction and Punishment".

Article 6 actually confirms the author's view that "false self-supporting, real agent" does not belong to the specific behavior of tax fraud, and whether the export enterprise constitutes tax fraud still depends on whether the actual exporter has committed tax fraud. Therefore, "fake self-management, real agent" behavior at most belongs to the tax fraud help behavior, according to the theory of joint crime, help behavior only in the export enterprise subjective "knowingly", only constitute the criminal act of the crime by the help of the crime, that is, fraudulent export of tax rebates. The crime of cheating export tax refund. Accordingly, between "fake self-management, real agent" and tax fraud, a bridge is built through the subjective element of "knowing", i.e., tax fraud = "knowing" + That is, tax fraud = "knowledge" + "false self-employment, real agency".

Since the State Administration of Taxation has not made specific provisions on the fraudulent export tax rebate behavior at the administrative level, in practice, tax authorities at all levels in the process of handling administrative cases, more reference to the judicial interpretation of tax fraud and the future or will refer to the two high judicial interpretations. At the same time, due to the tax fraud belongs to the "administrative crime", administrative violations and criminal offenses can be converted into each other, so the composition is consistent. Accordingly, the logic and viewpoints of the above judicial interpretation of tax fraud should be applied to the administrative offense level of fraudulent export tax rebate behavior.

To sum up, "fake self-management, real agent" is not a specific act of tax fraud, and the export enterprise implementing "fake self-management, real agent" cannot be regarded as committing tax fraud on the basis of this.

III. the implementation of "fake self-management, real agent" constitutes tax fraud, and must "know" that others are cheating taxes.

(i) The tax authorities and judicial authorities in this case only determined that Company Z constituted tax fraud on the basis of "subjective fault", which unduly expanded the subjective constituent elements of tax fraud.

Article 66 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law clearly stipulates that tax fraud is "false declaration of export or other deceptive means", then according to the textual interpretation, no matter "false declaration" or "deception", only subjective fault is required. "can only be subjective intent, and the scope of subjective intent is "false declaration of export or other deceptive means", and the purpose of subjective intent is to cheat the state export tax rebate.

In this case, the tax authorities and judicial authorities avoided talking about the subjective intent of tax fraud, and turned to discuss the "subjective fault", but the scope of subjective fault is greater than the subjective intent of tax fraud, and fault also includes negligence, in fact, the tax authorities and the judicial authorities are to expand the scope of the subjective elements constituting tax fraud, and reduce the burden of proof of the tax authorities.

In addition, the Supreme Court, in its ruling on the dismissal of the complaint, turned to discussing that Company Z's violation of "fake self-management and real agency" and its failure to take corresponding risk prevention and control measures "had the illegality and culpability in tax administration norms", which in fact also In fact, it also avoided the subjective intent issue, turned to the purpose of legislation and objective position of attribution of responsibility, and did not strictly follow the constituent elements of tax fraud in judging and analyzing one by one, which unduly depreciated the rights and interests of Z Company.

(ii) Whether the behavior of "fake self-management and real agency" constitutes tax fraud should be strictly determined whether it is subjectively "aware" of the occurrence of tax fraud.

The behavior of "fake self-employment, real agent" is a tax fraud assistance behavior under the premise of tax fraud. Whether it is the old judicial interpretation of tax fraud, or the new judicial interpretation of the two high courts, the enumeration of tax fraud means, there is no "false self-employment, real agent". In the tax fraud judicial interpretation, the behavior as a help behavior, only in the case of "knowingly" constitute tax fraud; in the two high judicial interpretation, is deleted this provision, but the application of a more principled theory of common crimes. Obviously, the two high points of view has been clear, "false self-employment, the real agent" is only a help behavior, if you want to be recognized as tax fraud, there must be a common implementation of fraudulent export tax rebate intention, and this intention is at least permissive intention.

Tax fraud in the judicial interpretation of the "knowingly", refers to the foreign trade enterprises in the subjective at least have let the perpetrator implement fraudulent export tax refunds intentionally. That is, the foreign trade enterprises realize that the perpetrator of the act of forgery, signing a false contract of sale, illegal means of obtaining customs declaration and other export tax rebate documents and false VAT invoices and other acts of tax fraud judicial interpretation, but still to help it declared a tax rebate and share the benefits of the rebate, resulting in the loss of state tax.

Returning to this case, the tax authorities and the judicial authorities considered that Company Z had committed the act of "false self-supporting and real agency" and declared that there was subjective fault, which constituted tax fraud, and the logical deduction of their decision was flawed. In other words, the tax authorities and judicial authorities grafted a broad "subjective fault" onto a "helping behavior", and thus came to the conclusion that it constituted fraudulent export tax refund. Obviously, this assertion violates the principle of tax law and administrative penalty law, unduly widens the constituent elements of tax fraud, and also violates the principle of administrative legality.

(iii) Summary: The subjective factors of the "fake self-supporting and real agency" behavior of the export enterprises are diverse and should be accurately identified.

In practice, the export enterprises know that "fake self-management, real agent" behavior is the State Administration of Taxation expressly stipulates that shall not declare the violation of export tax rebates, and still carry out the relevant business, mostly for the purpose of pursuing the growth of export turnover and trade profits, a small number of foreign trade enterprises is the upstream and downstream enterprises joint collusion and fraud, their subjective is not In order to obtain the benefits of export tax rebates, at the same time, some foreign trade enterprises have also fulfilled the obligation of auditing in the process of carrying out business, only due to the limitation of their own auditing ability, failing to discover the tax fraud. For these cases, the relevant tax cheating actors have been criminally punished and sentenced to fines of 1-5 times of the amount of tax cheating, the national tax has been recovered and compensated, and the relevant offenders have also been criminally sanctioned. Therefore, for these enterprises, the author believes that to recognize them as fraudulent export tax rebates and impose fines of 1-5 times of the fraudulent amount, stop the right to export tax rebates, or even transfer them to the public security for handling, is actually the practice of imposing multiple penalties for one thing, which is even less in line with the principle of equivalent penalties and liabilities of the administrative law.

The author is of the view that, as to whether it constitutes fraudulent export tax rebates, since the "fraudulent export tax rebates" stipulated in the administrative law and the criminal law have consistency and convertibility, their determination should be consistent, which is also reflected in the fact that, in this case, the tax authorities still transferred Company Z to the public security authorities for handling after the company had been subjected to administrative penalties. Therefore, the tax authorities in determining the implementation of "false self-management, real agent" behavior of export enterprises constitute tax fraud, the need to accurately identify its subjective intent, rather than to take the objective imputation of a one-size-fits-all approach, otherwise contrary to the principle of fairness in taxation.

IV. foreign trade enterprises must be alert to the risk of tax fraud and strengthen internal management to prevent three major business risks.

Although the author believes that the implementation of the "false self-employment, the real agent" behavior constitutes tax fraud, must "know" others to cheat the tax, but in practice, there is indeed an inappropriate expansion of the subjective elements of the phenomenon, if the export tax rebates fraudulent results, even if the real tax fraud If the result of export tax refund fraud occurs, even if the real tax fraud perpetrator is held criminally liable, most tax authorities will, like the tax authorities in this case, not only recover the export tax refund of the foreign trade enterprises, but also tend to determine that the foreign trade enterprises constitute tax fraud, and penalize the enterprises. Therefore, for the foreign trade enterprises themselves, in the process of carrying out business needs to improve risk prevention awareness, to put an end to others "dry" business model, alert to the three major business risks, specifically:

(i) Risk 1: intermediary referral, fixed fee "drought and flood insurance income" is a risk

In the process of handling cases, there is no lack of enterprises involved in tax fraud cases, said that the purpose of the business is not to obtain tax rebates, and even some enterprises are to complete the local or higher authorities on the turnover of the target, not for the sake of profit. However, since these enterprises have no way to open up the market, "it so happens" that there are intermediary introducers to promote the business and ensure that the enterprises will not lose money by charging a fixed percentage of "agency fee" or "profit". ", foreign trade enterprises only need to walk around the funds, walk around the accounts, declare the export tax rebates can be.

Some enterprises in the business process also realize that there is a risk of tax fraud, taken to send people to the producers, foreigners to prevent on-site verification of the way, but because they do not understand the business, be deceived, and ultimately the case broke out, the enterprise suffered huge losses, and even face criminal liability.

(ii) Risk two: the real owner of the goods to find the door to take the initiative to ask for cooperation, the goods are real there is still a risk of fraudulent taxation

There is also a category of cases, the real exporters due to various reasons can not or do not want to export their own customs clearance, and thus take the initiative to contact the foreign trade enterprises, requesting exports in the name of foreign trade enterprises. Due to the foreign trade field of export agency needs certain qualifications, and agency export for foreign trade enterprises is not profitable, part of the foreign trade enterprises have a sense of fluke, that has been the real owner of the goods, goods audit, to ensure that the goods have no problem, will not constitute a tax fraud. But in fact, the elements of export tax rebate is the goods "tax-paid". Many real exporters do not use their own name to export, it is very likely that they can not get a compliant VAT invoice, so they provide foreign trade enterprises with input invoices, many of which are false invoices.

Among them, these real shippers or referrals have different identities, and in some cases, the referrals are even friends and relatives of the foreign trade enterprises, and the foreign trade enterprises, for the sake of face, carried out the relevant business, and after the export tax rebate declaration came down, the real exporters lost contact after obtaining the benefits of export tax rebates. Foreign trade enterprises have become the main body to bear the responsibility of these fraudulent input invoices. In these businesses, some foreign trade enterprises were characterized as fraudulent export tax refunds; some foreign trade enterprises were able to prove that there were real goods, and subjectively did not have the intent to cheat taxes, and were freed from criminal liability, but were still subject to administrative penalties.

(iii) Risk three: customs brokerage firms, freight forwarding companies take the initiative to provide information on export goods, the inevitable outbreak of tax fraud risks

In some of China's land transport ports, there are a number of small customs brokerage firms, freight forwarding companies, warehousing companies, some of them will set up a number of "information department", specifically used to pass on information about the goods and contact the foreign trade company, the request to export in the name of the foreign trade company, and to share the tax rebates.

In these operations, some real exporters know that their goods are used to peddle, its participation in the sharing of export tax rebates; some real exporters may not know that their goods information is leaked, the benefits of export tax rebates are customs brokerage firms, freight forwarding companies, warehousing companies to retain. If the foreign trade company did not withstand the temptation of interest, agreed to export these goods in their own name, is bound to fall into the risk of tax fraud. Good luck, the real exporter said it is the initiative to provide information about the goods, may be in accordance with the "false self-supporting, the real agent" processing, the responsibility or lighter; bad luck can not find the real exporter, in accordance with the "buy a single ticket" of the false declaration of exports, criminal liability is very high. Criminal liability is very high.

(iv) Summary

In short, foreign trade enterprises must strengthen the export business compliance, do not purchase links, transportation links, customs clearance links, collection, settlement of foreign exchange links involved in contact with production enterprises, foreign investors, customs clearance and export business, domestic transportation of goods and other business to others to do. If foreign trade enterprises do not strictly regulate their own business, not personally involved in contacting production enterprises, foreign businessmen, and negotiate with them, purely relying on intermediaries to bridge the gap, it is very likely that they will be caught in the risk of being cheated by the wrongdoers, unknowingly apply for tax refunds and obtain tax refunds, in which case the likelihood of being recognized by the tax authorities as a tax fraud will be greatly increased, resulting in their own tax fraud activities as a In this case, the possibility of being recognized as a tax fraud by the tax authorities will be greatly increased, resulting in one becoming a victim of tax fraud.