I got a call the other day from an officer at the ATO's Legal Department, after identifying me through the usual means, he informed me that he had in front of him a legal affidavit that stated I have been accused of tax evasion and that I owe the ATO $4,000.
Up until this point everything was extremely legit, in fact its exactly how I would expect such a call to go down.
At this point I started inquiring about the debt and how it came about, most of my tax returns have been done by an accountant so I really wasn't sure how I could have been avoiding taxes. We argued over the figure for several minutes, I was not able to get any concrete information out of him, it was at this point I was starting to question the legitimacy of the call, but the final nail in the coffin was when he said 'you are required to pay the debt in full before the end of this phone call' I told him I cant do that, and he came back with, 'if you do not an officer from your local police department will be around within the hour to collect you and hold you for 72 hours until you can appear in court'.
I told him I look forward to it and hung up.
The legitimacy of the call was unreal, if I didn't know that the Tax Office sorts out such matters via letters I'd have probably fallen for it...