The Australian Tax Office said on Friday that the global financial crisis was one of the major reasons that tax avoidance have spiked up in the country as it noted that glaring numbers of small businesses operating in rural regions were particularly hurt by the economic decline.

ATO second commissioner Bruce Quigley said that the most identifiable hot spots were in northern Queensland, central and western NSW and central Victoria, where "there has been a degree of people not complying mainly because they are struggling to meet their obligations for pay as you go as well as superannuation guarantees."

With that consideration, Mr Quigley said that the tax office has been providing micro-businesses with considerable concessions, especially those with under $2 million turnovers, which allow these firms some leeway in repaying debts minus interest via the office's direct debit scheme.

In a speech before the Taxation Institute of Australia held in Brisbane, the tax commissioner also said that the controversial Project Wickensby has been successful so far on its task of auditing 1200 firms and personalities, where the project raised $730 million in liabilities, filed charges against 57 individuals, convicted 11 offences and another 26 criminal cases still ongoing.

Mr Quigley decried the Australian media's treatment on the project, which regularly pointed to the initiative as an unsuccessful venture by ATO due to perceived delays on a number of prosecutions.

He said that such delays were part of tax administration cases and should not be equated as end games for the office's campaign of prosecuting tax frauds as he emphasised that "it's what message the project sends to the community about whether it's right or not to undertake these activities in tax havens."

Mr Quigley declared that the tax office has been leaving dents of impressions and changes on its campaigns as he cited cases of persons already investigated by ATO, whose cases were revisited in subsequent years where it showed that voluntary declarations coming from audited individuals/entities climbed by 200 percent.

As shown by ATO's reflective analysis, Mr Quigley said that beyond the raw figures were signs of behavioural changes coming from those already checked and apprehended for tax offences, which should be good sign for the government.