A whistleblower who exposed controversial debt recovery practices at the Australian Taxation Office has avoided jail and will not hold any convictions against his name.
Richard David Boyle, a former ATO debt collection worker in Adelaide, was sentenced at South Australian District Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to four charges, about seven years after he appeared on the ABC’s Four Corners program in 2018 to raise concerns about aggressive tactics at the ATO.
He alleged the ATO inappropriately deployed its garnishee powers, which allows a bank or an employer to extract money from someone owing a debt to pay the ATO.
In May this year, he pleaded guilty to the disclosure of protected information to another entity by a taxation officer, making a record of protected information, using a listening device to overhear, record or monitor or listen to a private conversation and recording another person’s tax file number after striking a deal with prosecutors.
On Thursday, Judge Liesl Kudelka declined to send Mr Boyle to prison for his offences or impose convictions and instead sentenced him to a $500 12-month good behaviour bond.
“It is inexpedient to inflict any punishment other than a nominal punishment,” Judge Kudelka said.
“I find that the offences were committed under extenuating circumstances.”
His offending occurred between April 2017 and February 2018, Judge Kudelka said.
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