iscoverThe Administrative Review Tribunal has suspended proceedings on a case of alleged income tax fraud as the applicant awaits a separate criminal trial for alleged GST fraud.
ARTA pauses income tax fraud case to await criminal GST fraud trial
13 August 2025
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8 minute read
The applicant faces allegations of misreporting income tax after receiving payments described as ‘directors fees’ or ‘gross payments’ from several entities she controlled, including a childcare centre. She also allegedly used a company credit card to charge personal expenses.
The Administrative Review Tribunal of Australia (ARTA) has issued a stay in the proceedings to await the outcome of a criminal trial the applicant is currently facing, noting that there could be significant overlaps in the matters considered by the Tribunal and the criminal case.
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“The charges against the Applicant have now been clarified, the criminal prosecution is ramping up, there is potential for conflict between the proposed witnesses in each proceeding, and there is a clear forensic disadvantage to the Applicant should this proceeding precede the criminal proceedings,” court documents read.
In the criminal court, she faced allegations of GST fraud, including 15 counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception through false business activity statements and two counts of knowingly using a false document to obtain a financial gain.
The Tribunal’s proceedings related to the misreported income tax that were filed in 2019 and concerned the financial years ending 2003 and 2014.
A central question to the Tribunal’s proceedings would concern the characterisation of the applicant’s income, the applicant’s solicitor for the initial 2020 case said.
“The central question in these proceedings is likely to be whether the payments from a trust were properly characterised as loan repayments or distributions that were properly characterised as income,” they said in a 2020 affidavit.
“That would necessitate the applicant adducing evidence about corporate and trust structures, inter-entity loans and the methodology used for recording expenses and repayments.”
The applicant’s conduct in her capacity as a director or trustee, including whether she was the “controlling mind and will” of the entities in question, would also likely be central to the case.
In 2020, the applicant attempted to lodge a stay application, which was refused on the grounds that there was not enough clarity surrounding the criminal proceedings and their potential overlap with the Tribunal case.
Her solicitors said that advancing her case to the Tribunal could compromise her defence of the criminal charges, and that the Tribunal proceedings should remain paused until her criminal trial was complete.
Furthermore, her solicitor said that there could be significant overlaps between the two proceedings, in terms of both subject matter and relevant witnesses.
Concerns were also raised regarding negative publicity that could be drawn from the Tribunal case, which could bias a jury in the criminal case.
The third, most recent application was successful on 7 August 2025 after the Tribunal determined that there was now enough clarity regarding the criminal charges to determine points of overlap.
ARTA determined that the proceedings should be stayed for 12 months, until 5 August 2026.
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