Missing Trader Fraud

Missing trader fraud, also called missing trader intra-community fraud or MTIC fraud, is the non-payment of value added tax to a government by fraudsters who exploit VAT rules, particularly the European Union rule that the movement of goods between member states is VAT-free; the fraudster charges VAT on a sale but absconds with the collected amount instead of remitting it to the tax authority, becoming the missing trader the offense is named for. A prevalent variant, carousel fraud, moves the same VAT-liable goods and their associated tax repeatedly among a chain of companies across multiple jurisdictions in a pattern that resembles a carousel, so that the fraud can be repeated on the same goods more than once.