The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has acknowledged that some of its officers have insufficient ability to link evidence with taxpayer behaviours when it comes to formulating penalty decisions, according to a report issued by the Inspector-General of Taxation.
The report, released by the Minister for Finance and Acting Assistant Treasurer, Senator Mathias Cormann stated that "stakeholders have asserted that some ATO officers lack the capability to appropriately deal with facts and evidence to formulate sustainable penalty decisions"
The report then went on to detail conduct which those stakeholders had led to these problems, including not considering all collected evidence, using irrelevant evidence and inadequately considering the weight of evidence.
The report noted ATO material which indicated that "over one-third of ATO penalty decisions were reversed on objection due to ATO officer conduct, including not seeking or requesting critical information or supporting evidence; inadequately analysing the facts or evidence; and incorrectly applying the relevant law or ATO view to the facts and evidence that was available during the audit".
"An area of concern as observed by the ATO is that some officers have insufficient ability to link evidence with taxpayer behaviours," the report said. "The link between facts and evidence and the behaviour it infers is not always made by staff."
"Furthermore, internal ATO material indicates that where some ATO officers are faced with complexities in dealing with facts and evidence or are not actively managing their case, those officers may run out of time and be left without compelling facts on which to base penalty decisions. These officers may then use the available facts to make a penalty decision which unfortunately may have been incorrect and/or based on irrelevant evidence," the report said.
