Glenn Wheatley completed his 15 month jail term on Saturday with Victorian corrections officials removing his electronic ankle bracelet at his home. He then mercilessly unloaded on Operation Wickenby, his tormentors for the past few years in a Weekend Australian interview before reportedly left the country for a holiday with his wife.
But were Wheatley’s words the rants of someone holding a grudge against the system that sent him to the big house or should we listen carefully to what he said. Let’s look at what he said and you be the judge:
My right to privacy was trampled on by tax officials.
Wheatley claims his personal tax affairs were leaked to the media by the ATO. He is right – they were. Wickenby has been beset by constant leaks from ATO and Australian Crime Commission investigators. Just ask Paul Hogan, John Cornell and Melbourne celebrity lawyer Michael Brereton. Wheatley’s barrister Robert Richter was adamant where the leaks came from. He told Crikey last year, “It’s the bloody tax office.” The ATO response has been pathetic with tax chief Michael D’Ascenzo saying they routinely analyse newspaper reports to ensure the leak did not come from them.
I was the poster boy for Operation Wickenby.
No doubt about this one as Wheatley is the only conviction coming out of Wickenby after four long years of taxpayer funding.
Operation Wickenby is in tatters. “It is nothing short of an embarrassment to the five agencies involved. How many millions have been spent for only one conviction? They have bungled the investigation. It is a disaster for them.”
Over the last few years Crikey readers know full well my views on Wickenby. I agree with Wheatley. It’s a national witch hunt for high profile scalps and it hasn’t delivered. At this very moment Wickenby is $121 million dollars in the red. They have spent 4/7ths of their budget ($174M of $305M) but have collected only $53 million.
D’Ascenzo likes to tell parliamentary committees he has raised $44 million in collections as a result of improved compliance behaviour by Wickenby participants and had $60 million restrained under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Sorry Mr D’Ascenzo, I’m not convinced about these rubbery figures as your voluntary compliance effect has not been tested at a parliamentary committee and restrained does not mean collected.
“I was given a tougher sentence than I deserved because the Australian Taxation Office, ministers, prosecutors and the judge wanted to make a political point to promote Wickenby and to deter others.”
There is no doubt that the prosecution was politically-charged. Crikey broke the story 15 months ago that Wheatley had been dudded by bureaucratic leaks and zealots (Crikey, July 25 2007, “Wheatley dudded by bureaucratic leaks and zealots“). The government was under pressure. They had allocated $305 million to fund Wickenby, with the DPP receiving about $60 million over six years. But where were the results? The government apparently needed a trophy — so step forward Glenn Wheatley.
They certainly have not given the incentive for others to come forward and confess.
Crikey understands that lawyers representing various Wickenby suspects have devised a litigation program that will have the government tangled up in legal red tape for the next ten years. This strategy has been devised for one reason: To keep their clients out of jail. One legal source told me, “My client doesn’t mind spending $5 million dollars a year in legal bills if it’s going to stop him becoming the next Glenn Wheatley”.
Crikey can also reveal that this strategy is shared by many Wickenby suspects and their legal advisors who have the financial resources to take the government on.
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Wheatly’s ‘ I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t realise how wrong ‘, begs the question indeed.
He doesn’t like the “public shaming”. Damn, what a pity. How about we bring back the stocks (no, not stocks as in shares, but the ones that people were locked in to allow the public to throw rotten fruit etc at). Weekend detention via electronic handcuffs would pale into insignificance.
I earn a great deal of money by Australian standards, but I have no trusts, no overseas tax haven entities, not even a negatively geared investment property. I just pay the tax – it’s the least I can do given the prosperity that this society affords me, with many people working extremely hard for a lot less than I get.
Nothing makes me sicker than these apologists for thieves like Wheatley. For many years wealthy Australians have largely, through one scam or another, chosen what percentage of their fair share of tax they pay. The ATO has always been under-resourced when compared with the vile sharks (lawyers and accountants) that these thieves keep on their payroll.
For starters there is that intensely stupid notion that unless the ATO operation makes a “profit”, it is an embarasment and a failure. If the ATO didn’t attempt to plug these gushing holes in our system, there would be no deterrent at all, and undoubtably these thieves would steal even more from the honest, community-orientated citizens of this country. I doubt that it is possible to measure the overall benefits to honest Australians from Wickenby, but I’m sure many of these thieves think twice before repatriating their tax avoidance windfalls using O/S credit cards now.
Poster boy – my heart bleeds. If he hadn’t stolen the money, he wouldn’t be a poster boy.
Finally, irrespective of the overall bottom line effect on PAYE Australians of this and other ATO initiatives, there is a more important principle at work here. Psychological experiments show that honest folks would rather lose out a bit to punish scumbags than let them get away with it.
And as for dirty tactics on the part of the ATO, how do you think these scumbags (sorry, I mean “tall poppies”) got to be as wealthy as they are – not by being nice or fair. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
No doubt Glenn Wheatley was either naughty or naive beyond belief, but I would like to question whether there are problems of due process in the conduct of the Wickenby project. They have spent an awful lot of money and used the media in very sneaky ways, but it would be interesting to identify the drivers which prompt this sort of behaviour. I do not know whether it is still the case, but in the late 1980s, the then Tax Commissioner, Mr. Trevor Boucher, introduced a regime of performance criteria (I don’t really know whether these involved bonuses, or quotas, or both) which in the downturn of the early 1990s, led to ATO officials inflicting enormous and unwarranted damage upon many taxpayers. At one point, the then Tax Advisor to the Ombudsman, Mr. Peter Haggstrom, was so incensed at their behaviour that he set up a project to examine literally hundreds of such cases. He intended to publish a report, I understand, but left his job shortly afterwards, and when I asked the new Advisor (an ex-ATO apparatchik, I believe) if I could get a copy, I was told there was no report and was referred to one line in an annual report which in effect said “Will do better”.. No joy to the victims, of course. With another downturn looming, it will be interesting to see whether the same dramas will play out.
Glen wheatley the martyr? oh spare us!
I was on Austlii today looking at the few pathetic fruits of the vastly more expensive and longstanding Social security prosecutions no whine on crikey or the Oz about that I see.
Have you better ideas for high end compliance Mr Seage?