eTaxMan, designed by Allagma Technologies Inc. (Allagma), a Montreal-based IT firm, has been chosen by the State of Washington, US, to monitor and prevent sales tax fraud in the cash economy.
On August 30, 2017, a restaurant owner pleaded guilty in a criminal tax theft case prosecuted by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The owner in question used what is known as a “sales suppression software” in order to hide cash transactions and pocket the collected sales taxes. This landmark case is the first prosecution of its kind in the United States. As part of a plea agreement, the restaurant owner agreed to a unique, real-time monitoring of the business’ sales to ensure all applicable taxes are being collected and remitted. The Department of Revenue will monitor the owner and the restaurant for five years, using Allagma’s innovative solution, eTaxMan. “Tax fraud in the underground economy is a major global problem that is siphoning billions of dollars from governments around the world, reducing their ability to deliver cost-effective services to citizens,” noted Vartkes Melkonian, President of Allagma. “Our eTaxMan solution is multi-modular and its components address the needs of all stakeholders, from consumers to merchants and governments. When everyone pays their fair share of taxes, everyone benefits.”
Allagma’s innovative solution was accepted by the Attorney General of the State of Washington as the right solution by far, which can monitor the transactions of convicted merchants, instead of sentencing them to prison terms. eTaxMan was designed to record sales-related data the moment a transaction is keyed in, before it is even finalized. Therefore, all subsequent actions of sales suppression activities are also recorded. It provides unprecedented insight to tax authorities as to the various transactional patterns of a particular business. As Steve Adessky, Director of Government Affairs at Allagma, points out, “Our eTaxMan solution was selected mainly because of its superior flexibility to be customized, which was necessary in this implementation, and also because it meets all the requirements set forth by both the prosecution and the defense teams of this case.”
eTaxMan was developed after many years of research on tax fraud in the underground economy, with the commitment of making it both tamper-proof and hack-proof. It is considered to be the fourth-generation solution available on the market, circumventing all the technical problems and shortcomings of any other solution in place today. Due to its superior recording function, this advanced software enables tax authorities to have a surgical precision in their auditing initiatives, substantially increasing the probability of positive results, and therefore decreasing both revenue losses and audit costs.
This is a major development for Montreal’s Allagma, which was founded in 2000. “We believe that this is an important milestone for our company and establishes us as a Canadian success story in the very important international market of combatting tax fraud,” said Viken Attarian, Senior VP Business Development, Marketing and Communications.
