Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan flays media over ‘whistleblower’ coverage

A livid ATO boss has ripped into ‘misleading’ media coverage of former employees’ claims.

Australian Taxation Office commissioner Chris Jordan has taken aim at “out of control” commentary about two former employees — including one who is facing criminal charges for breaching taxpayer privacy — and slammed a media campaign against government secrecy for being loose with the truth.

“The current commentary has simply got out of control. It is an unbalanced depiction of our organisation,” Mr Jordan told Senators on Wednesday.

Appearing before a Senate Estimates committee, Mr Jordan slammed media organisations for including an assertion about the government’s revenue agency as part of a front page Your Right To Know campaign.

“This week began with a public campaign across all the major media outlets that included the claim: the Tax Office can take money directly out of your account, but you’re not allowed to know,” Mr Jordan said.

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“Wow. Imagine if that was true. I mean, go for your life on a right to know campaign. But please, if you are seeking the truth, please try to use it yourself at least insofar as it relates to the ATO,” he said.

Mr Jordan said he needed to “inject some balance into this conversation” about how the ATO dealt with taxpayers amid claims from former employees who believed they had been sacked after raising concerns about malfeasance at the Tax Office.

Ex-employee claims

The ex-employees included Richard Boyle, who went public with concerns about the garnishee notices being used to bully small businesses, and Ron Shamir, who believes he was forced out of the ATO after raising concerns about the way the agency was handling GST claims. Mr Boyle faces criminal charges and a possible prison sentence over alleged breaches of the Privacy Act.

“The facts are not salacious or sensational,” Mr Jordan said.

“It is something I would normally refrain from speaking about. But as the individuals in these cases have repeatedly sought out the public eye and made public claims that are potentially damaging to our organisation and the administration of the tax system, I am obliged to speak out in this way,” he said.

“There are many avenues for staff to make a public interest disclosure. Since 2013-14 [when the public interest disclosure system was introduced] we have had 198 employees make public interest disclosures. Twenty-four of those were substantiated,” Mr Jordan said.

“We rarely receive any complaints about our handling of PIDs, yet currently we have two public cases where we have former employees who believe they have tried to whistleblow on ATO activities and feel that the system has not afforded them adequate protection.

“If you are seeking the truth, please try to use it yourself, at least insofar as it relates to the ATO.”

“I note that both employees were subject to ongoing workplace performance or conduct issues that were close to finalisation and were likely to result in their termination. This was well before seeking these whistleblower-style protection.”

Mr Jordan said commentary surrounding Mr Shamir was “at least factually incorrect or seriously misleading.

“This is an employee who was counselled over a number of years because of his persistent and inappropriate behaviour towards fellow employees and managers,” Mr Jordan said.

“When Mr Shamir’s workgroup was restructured he simply refused to perform other duties, notwithstanding multiple retraining opportunities,” he said.

Mr Jordan said he would like to respond more forcefully to Mr Boyle’s claims, but was prevented due to a current criminal case against the former employee.

“However, I will speak to clarify some of the blatant and persistent misrepresentations that surround the commentary around the case. I believe they may undermine the community’s confidence and trust around the tax system or deter genuine whistleblowers from coming forward,” Mr Jordan said.

“The reporting has attempted to obscure or conflate two separate issues. Firstly, a set of allegations about our culture and our debt policies. These have been found to be unsubstantiated by the inspector general of tax,” he said.

Mr Jordan said the second issue went to alleged breaches of privacy and taxation laws and the recording of people’s conversations without approval.

‘Deliberately sensationalist’

“The commentary around this second issues has at times been deliberately sensationalist with reports that the defendant is likely to face 161 years in jail,” he said. Rather, Mr Jordan said, any potential sentence would have various charges served out concurrently and considered against the circumstances of the alleged offence, which would drastically reduce the potential sentence.

“Just this morning, yet again, the ABC reported, Mr Boyle is facing a threat of life in prison,” he said.

“The charges do not relate to speaking out about heavy headed debt collection practices, but rather to allegedly providing taxpayer files to third parties and allegedly recording conversations.

“These files were not referred to in Four Corners or any other reporting. So let me be clear, the threat of a prison sentence is not about speaking out about debt collection practices,” Mr Jordan said.

“We simply cannot turn a blind eye to alleged contraventions of taxation and secrecy law. The disciplinary process for Mr Boyle was substantially completed before we knew anything about alleged disclosure of taxpayer files,” he said.

“I am not telling you these things to deflect from honest or useful criticism of where we could be doing better. The current commentary has simply got out of control. It is an unbalanced depiction of our organisation.”

“Mr Boyle’s whistleblowing allegations of the garnishee practices that were found to have no substance by the Inspector General of Taxation do not carry any potential of a prison term.”

Mr Jordan said the ATO had a debt book of $45 billion and made 8 million attempts to contact taxpayers over their debts every year.

“We use garnishees and other firmer actions only after these attempts to contact the taxpayer have failed. On average, there have been 19 interactions or attempts to engage a taxpayer before we exercise garnishee powers,” Mr Jordan said.

“Now I am the chief tax collector. It’s not a particularly easy or popular role, but it’s one that I took on voluntarily. If we don’t do this, that $45bn in our debt book will grow and will take funds away from the provision of government services and employees will miss out on their future retirement savings.”