Auckram and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation)

In Auckram and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation), the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered an application by the taxpayer to issue summonses for oral evidence from officers of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The dispute concerned the taxpayer's objection to an assessment, specifically whether a franked dividend payment should be included in their assessable income for the 2016 income year. The taxpayer sought to summons an ATO officer, the Manager/Supervisor/Director of the Fraud Investigations Unit, and another ATO employee, Andrew Orme.

The primary legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the proposed witnesses could provide evidence relevant to the central issue of the review, whether the requests constituted a "fishing expedition," and whether issuing such summonses would constitute an abuse of process. The Tribunal was required to determine if the evidence sought would "throw light" on the substantive question before it, or if it related to collateral matters such as fraud allegations that were not directly relevant to the assessment review.

The Tribunal reasoned that the evidence sought from each of the proposed witnesses was not relevant to the core issue of whether the franked dividend payment was assessable income. It found that any evidence these individuals might provide would not assist the Tribunal in determining this central question. The Tribunal characterised the requests as "fishing expeditions" and an abuse of process, as they appeared to be speculative attempts to have fraud allegations investigated rather than to gather evidence pertinent to the tax assessment itself. The Tribunal also noted that the opinion of an ATO officer on the issues before the Tribunal would be of no benefit.

Consequently, the Tribunal refused the applicant's request for the issue of all six summonses.