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Federal court imposes “hardship” penalty for more than 600 contraventions over three years.
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Fake tax agent repeat offender fined $150k, permanently banned
10 March 2023
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The federal court has fined a Queensland woman $150,096 for providing tax agent services for a fee on more than 600 occasions while unregistered.
It also issued an order permanently restraining the woman, Franibelle Saludo Ordiales, from providing tax agent services and said the financial penalty could have been much higher.
Justice John Logan, who imposed the penalties following successful action by the TPB last July to prevent Ms Ordiales lodging returns, said the board had sought a penalty almost double the one imposed and the law and “a process of mathematics” implied a penalty of more than $33 million.
However, Justice Logan said the 636 offences yielded Ms Ordiales modest individual amounts of $50 to $100, adding up to $48,865 over three years to September 2021, and a lesser fine was appropriate.
“I have in mind imposing a penalty per contravention of $236 such that the total penalty is $150,096,” he said.
“Individually, and in terms of aggregate outcome, these seem to me to yield a sum which, having regard to the conduct, still sends a message of general deterrence.
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“Each individual penalty is far in excess of any individual sum received and the totality of penalty, relative to the total amount received, is far in excess of that.
“The level of penalisation indicates that to engage in the conduct, even for modest reward, is to engage in a form of economic suicide. The penalty overall is one which, in my view, serves the object of general deterrence as is applicable in the circumstances of the individual case.”
The court heard that Ms Ordiales had net income of about $1,500 a fortnight, little savings and lived in shared rental accommodation. She had arrived in Australia from the Philippines in 2004 and suffered a marriage breakdown involving domestic violence two years later.
Justice Logan acknowledged that the fine would involve financial hardship for Ms Ordiales but said he was bound by precedent.
“I am so very aware that to impose a penalty of this amount is a particular hardship on Ms Ordiales,” he said. “I doubt whether, with the best will in the world, it would be within her ability to repay the sum, absent some windfall gain within her lifetime, but I consider myself bound by the observations made by the Full Court in High Adventure to impose a penalty in those individual amounts and in that total amount.”
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