ATO Whistleblower Richard Boyle Exits Plea Negotiations, Refusing to Plead to Bogus Charges

Australian Taxation Office whistleblower Richard Boyle revealed in an open letter addressing Australian attorney general Mark Dreyfus that he posted on X on Monday, 10 February 2025 which, amongst other things, advised the nation’s chief lawmaker that he was withdrawing the plea deal he’d been negotiating with the Commonwealth prosecutor, due to eight bogus charges against his name.

Whilst Boyle is now raising the point that there are serious claims as to why eight of the 24 criminal offences he stands charged with are not adequately made out by the whistleblower’s actions, this matter was raised towards the end of Boyle’s public interest disclosure hearings, which took place way back in October 2022.

Boyle blew the whistle on the ATO misapplying a garnishee practice to make end-of-financial-year figures in June 2017 appear more substantial than they would otherwise be, and after he’d made an internal disclosure to his ATO seniors that same year, he then went to an ATO oversight body to raise the alarm. But when all this failed, the South Australian man blew the whistle to the ABC.

The disclosures from Boyle and other ATO employees resulted in the Four Corners report Mongrel Bunch of Bastards, which lead to the investigation and subsequent laying of 66 criminal charges against him in early 2019, which were subsequently downgraded to 24 counts, carrying up to 46 years imprisonment, that cover preparatory acts he made in building his case for public interest disclosure.

The bizarre aspect to Boyle’s case is that he was the first person to argue the defence of disclosure in the public interest under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth), and on appeal, he was found to have been protected under the PID Act in respect to his singing to the press, however when it came to the actions he took to build his case, he was found to still be open to prosecution.

Yet now it’s come to light that a third of these charges are understood to be suspect.

Dubious charges acknowledged but not dropped

Boyle was in the South Australian District Court for a call over hearing, when he sent his open letter to Dreyfus at 9.40 am last Monday.

“During summation in the first public interest disclosure trial of its kind in October 2022, counsel for the Commonwealth advised regarding counts 17 to 24, where I was alleged to have disclosed confidential taxpayer information to my lawyer at the time (Mr Findlay), agreed with the evidence that ‘no such disclosure occurred,’” explained Boyle in his open letter to the AG last Monday.

The counts that Boyle is calling out relate to his having uploaded photographs of taxpayer information on to a Proton Mail account belonging to his lawyer, Mr Findlay.

The charges relating to this include six counts of attempt to disclose information to another entity, contrary to subsection 355-25(1)(b)(ii) of schedule 1 of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth), which carries up to 2 years imprisonment.

The final dubious charges consist of two counts of attempt to disclose another person’s tax file number to another entity, which is the offence contained in subsection 8WB(1)(c) of the Taxation Administration Act, and it too carries up to 2 years gaol time.

This issue with these charges, as Boyle’s legals pointed out in court, is that “Findlay deliberately did not open the encrypted files out of an abundance of caution to protect the confidentiality of the information”.

So, there was no attempt to disclose confidential information to his lawyer, as Boyle uploaded the files onto the email server, but he distinctly advised his lawyer not to look at them.

The whistleblower further recalled that “after the initial shock of this statement to all present, her Honour Judge Kudelka retorted, somewhat ironically, “’Aren’t you prosecuting Mr. Boyle in the criminal trial for disclosing confidential tax information?’”

According to Boyle, as his PID hearings came to an end that day, “all parties, including the court”, had left with the expectation that the Commonwealth would be dropping these charges, after both sides admitted the offence hadn’t been committed, and the presiding judge was too seen to acknowledge what had transpired.

However, as the ex-ATO officer is set to stand trial on 3 November this year, those suspect charges remain laid against his name 28 months later, even though all in the court acknowledged the dubiousness surrounding whether he actually committed those crimes.

So, there is clearly room for Boyle to lodge an abuse of process claim in the court, which can be mounted when exceptional circumstances are involved and can result in a permanent stay on proceedings.

Due process denied

Richard Boyle blew the whistle on a wrongly applied ATO garnishee practice, of which the SA Court of Appeal found he was protected in doing, as the criminal immunity under section 10 of the PID Act applied to his going to the ABC with his disclosures. However, this protection was found by the courts not to cover the preparatory acts he took in building his case.

In line with the finding that he was correct in having made the disclosure, several inquiries into the matter supported Boyle’s claims that the garnishee practice was being wrongly applied to dip into the accounts of small businesses with outstanding debts at an earlier point than permitted. And the practice was ended due to Boyle’s efforts.

Dreyfus is also responsible for the drafting of the 2013 PID Act during an earlier stint as AG. The 2016 Moss report found the laws were wanting and recommended 33 changes, which were ignored by the Coalition. The current AG promised to address these issues if elected back to office, yet the major overall of the PID Act that he was promising to undertake in opposition, has not been progressed.

In a 2023 consultation paper in respect of the major overhaul, the Attorney General’s Department includes deliberation upon whether preparatory acts, or the same behaviour that Boyle is facing close to 50 years inside for, should be protected going into the future under an overhauled PID Act.

However, Richard is continuing to be prosecuted for these acts that the nation’s chief lawmaker is now considering whether to protect, although these reforms are unlikely to see light of day before this year’s federal election.

“I kindly inform you that I have withdrawn my instructions to negotiate a plea deal with the Commonwealth,” Boyle told the Australian attorney general in his 10 February open letter. “I cannot, in good conscience, continue negotiating with this department under your control while they behave in this manner.”

“I will happily resume negotiations once the CDPP (Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions) behaves in a manner that I believe the public would respect and condone,” the whistleblower said in conclusion.

“My conscience will not allow me to continue while the government behaves in this manner.”