Rogue ATO investigator has taxpayer fitted with ankle monitor
Updated ,first published
A rogue investigator at the Australian Taxation Office is under increasing scrutiny over his decision to fit an ankle monitor on a taxpayer with no criminal history.
Anthony Rains continues to work for the ATO despite a Queensland Supreme Court ruling in October finding he committed 11 acts of misconduct in a separate case against another taxpayer with no criminal history, known by the pseudonym Julie Clarke.
This decision is under appeal.
The latest case involves a 58-year-old businesswoman from Queensland, known as Taxpayer A, who is on trial in the courts on 93 charges of misleading a tax official.
Taxpayer A pleaded not guilty and raised concerns with the ATO’s administrative leadership about how evidence was collected in his case.
In the Clarke case, Rains was found to have fabricated evidence, as well as to have lied and eliminated exculpatory evidence that would have led to the dismissal of criminal charges.
Taxpayer A was also subject to a control measure usually applied to convicted sex offenders as part of his bail conditions.
The woman, who was 54 at the time and suffered from several medical conditions including diabetes, was considered a flight risk and was released on bail on the condition that she be fitted with an ankle monitor.
Nine months later, Taxpayer A submitted a letter from his GP stating that “the ankle tracking device had aggravated the medical problem” and that “there was a possible loss of limb due to diabetes”.
The bail requirement has been abolished.
Helen Petaia, who apologized to the ATO and won a confidential settlement in her own fight seven years ago, is supporting Taxpayer A through her case.
“The way he was treated, there’s only one word to describe it: cruelty,” Petaia said.
“Placing a bracelet on the wrist of a middle-aged woman who only did it to defend herself is the biggest human rights violation on this planet,” he said.
“It might actually be polite to describe the ATO officers involved in harsh terms, but in fact I would say they are basically delusional. I mean, who would do that to a human being? He wasn’t a flight risk.”
An ATO spokesman refused to answer a number of questions, including whether ankle monitors were still being used on Australian taxpayers with no previous criminal history.
“It would be inappropriate for the ATO to comment on this specific matter as it is before the courts,” the spokesman said.
“Decisions regarding the application of bail conditions, including the nature and extent of monitoring, are determined by the courts, not the ATO.”
The ATO does not want to publicly disclose what action has been taken, citing the appeal following the Supreme Court’s decisions against Rains.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions also declined to answer whether Rains’ other investigations, particularly those in the courts, had been reviewed.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Michelle Rowland said her office could not question whether such a review should be conducted.
“The CDPP is an independent body. It is solely responsible for decisions about which matters it chooses to prosecute,” its spokesman said.
Deputy Finance Daniel Mulino, the minister responsible for the ATO, made a statement. A Current Event He said he was “aware of the decision” six weeks ago and had “discussed the matter with the ATO commissioner”.
But at a press conference in Canberra last week he said he would “inquire about this case in due course” and explained that he was satisfied with the “very rigorous processes within the ATO”.
Shadow attorney general Andrew Wallace described it as “completely inappropriate” and said Mulino should have intervened in a case he believed “smelt very bad”.
“This certainly raises very serious concerns about how not only the investigator acted in this case but also the ATO more broadly,” Wallace said.
Wallace believes there should be high-level discussions about whether it is appropriate to proceed with an appeal in the Julie Clarke case.
“I think questions need to be asked about whether the interests of justice really require that the appeal be pursued,” he said.
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Dan Nolan is senior reporter for A Current Affair in Queensland.
