Garrett vs Commissioner of Taxation

Harassing the Commissioner of Taxation

The federal court has dismissed the case of one Mr Garrett for the ninth time this year, this time for being a "vexatious litigant".  In his submission, the Commissioner of Taxation (the respondent) put forward 30 previous cases whereby Mr Garrett had lodged similarly passionate litigation, in support of a claim that Mr Garrett is abusing the court process to harass or cause delay for a wrongful purpose.

Mr Garrett has been issued with a bankruptcy notice (of which the Commissioner is presumably a party to) that is before other courts.

The judgement of Davies J contains some interesting remarks.

Referring to earlier dismissals of Mr Garrett's litigation:

"Pagone J ordered that Mr Garrett be prohibited from instituting in his own name...  in the institution of any proceedings in any registry of the Federal Court against the Commissioner, any second Commissioner of Taxation, any Deputy Commissioner of Taxation, any person who is or was employed in the Australian Taxation Office as an “APS employee” within the meaning of the Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) or any agent or advisor of the Commissioner, without the leave of the Court."  (p 9)

On the substance of earlier litigation:

"Beach J dismissed both applications, finding that Mr Garrett had not demonstrated any error in those decisions and there was no substance in any of the 48 proposed grounds of appeal in each matter, and that Mr Garrett had not shown that he would suffer any substantial injustice if leave were refused, even if the decisions were incorrect. "  (p 15)

On the claims from Mr Garrett in the present proceeding - demanding the Commissioner be refused his lawful ability to amend a return:

"Mr Garrett’s claim for an order that a notice of assessment “stand” is fundamentally misconceived. The notice of assessment in question is the notice of assessment of income tax issued to Mr Garrett for the year ended 30 June 2014 based on the income tax return that Mr Garrett lodged for that year. By seeking that order, Mr Garrett seeks to prevent the Commissioner from exercising his power of amendment under s 170 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 Act (Cth)...  the Court would not interfere to prevent the Commissioner from performing his duty to reassess Mr Garrett’s liability in accordance with his duty to apply the law and to assess Mr Garrett to the correct amount of liability imposed by the Income Tax Assessment Acts...  "

On Mr Garrett's serious allegations of professional misconduct:

"Mr Garrett was previously criticised for making serious assertions without support. In Garrett v Macks [2006] FCA 601, Lander J said at [14]:

These claims in their bald form should never have been made. They make the most serious allegations against a number of people, three of whom are officers of this Court, two of whom are professional persons who act as liquidators and trustees and are, therefore, responsible in that manner to this Court, and one of whom, of course, is a senior public officer, being the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation. Mr Garrett has made no effort in any way to support the allegations made in the proceeding. It was put by Mr Evans, by way of evidence, but really by way of submission in paragraph 19 of his affidavit, that the allegations are scandalous. I agree."

On suing the Commissioner for not complying with the taxpayer charter:

"The pleading in the present case is yet another illustration of Mr Garrett’s practice to make serious allegations of impropriety against other persons in unsupported and bald form. The final order sought that the respondents are able to be sued under the provisions of the Taxpayers’ Charter is not relief that is available at law. Accordingly, the application is bound to fail."  (p 17)

The proceeding was dismissed.

The case [2015] FCA 485:  http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2015/485.html