There was also $838 in relation for the cost of "overtime meals", one of which was taken at the BP at Marulan on the way to a family ski holiday and others at the St George Leagues Club, which was five minutes from his house.

According to Mr Ogden and his accountant, David McNeice, 30 per cent of the family home was used exclusively for work, including a "meeting room" which was in fact the living room. Two "storage areas" were in fact cupboards in the laundry and the space under the internal stairs.

An evening meal and breakfast the next morning were claimed on a number of occasions when Mr McNeice stayed overnight.

In a judgment in January, Administrative Appeals Tribunal deputy president Stephen Frost described Mr Ogden's behaviour as "disgraceful".

The court said: "There's quite a bit of sliced cheese. I must say that struck me as more likely purchased for the purpose of putting on the children's lunches." Supplied

A parliamentary economics committee is considering whether scrapping work-related tax deductions could be traded off for lower personal income taxes.

In 2012-13, taxpayers claiming $19.7 billion in work-related expenses. Car expenses accounted for $8 billion, or 40 per cent, home office costs, tools, equipment and other assets $7 billion and travel $2 billion.

The government's Rethink discussion paper on tax reform asked whether a standard deduction could be introduced to cut compliance costs.


The Henry review recommended such an approach, and New Zealand "cashed out" work-related expenses to deliver a personal tax cut.

The taxpayer claimed 39 packets of Monte Carlos. "That struck me as more than passing strange, I've got to say," the court said. Marcel Aucar

​​Justice Frost's decision highlights some of the most egregious claims in a series of courtroom exchanges and findings.

Monte Carlos and Kraft Easy Cheese

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Right. I did my own analysis of some of this claimed expenditure in the client - sorry - the staff and client amenities category. And unless I've made some errors, and I don't think I have, during the 2012 income year, that 12-month period, those ticks identified 39 packets of Monte Carlos?

MR OGDEN: Yes.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: 39 packets?

MR OGDEN: Yes.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I didn't separately record the White Wings Chunkies or the - sorry, just bear with me.

MS HAMMOND (representing the Tax Commissioner): The mini Wagon Wheels.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Westons mini biscuits. The tins of Arnotts biscuits. The Wagon Wheels.

MS HAMMOND: Tiny Teddies.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I didn't record them separately either but what I did come up with was 39 packets of Monte Carlos. That struck me as more than passing strange, I've got to say. 39 packets. My own research indicates that there are 12 biscuits in a packet. That's 468 biscuits in the year. And that might sound a trivial thing for me to focus on but it does paint something of a picture. It's starting to paint a picture of quite indiscriminate deduction claims?

MR OGDEN: Yes.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That's the picture that it's painting?

MR OGDEN: Yes. Yes.

MS HAMMOND: Then in August you purchase even more items for these clients. You purchase another two packets of the Bega Stringer Cheese. Now you've got four of these packets by this stage. You also purchase Bega dairy cheese in the eight pack, Bega slice cheese. Can I ask you, did you actually ever offer anybody a Bega stringer cheese?

MR OGDEN: Probably David when he's over.

MS HAMMOND: But David is not a business partner?

MR OGDEN: No.

MS HAMMOND: Did you offer the three gentlemen that you identified as coming to your home, a Bega stringer cheese?

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Someone - you say it wasn't you - someone actually went through these receipts and put ticks next to these things. Some of the items that were ticked in that exercise although called "Tea" - t-e-a - in the summary at page 264?

MR OGDEN: Yes.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: It's actually 1.5 litre bottles of Lipton Iced Tea?

MR OGDEN: Iced tea, yes.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: There are claims under the heading "Cheese" for Bega sliced cheese. There's a claim for Kraft Easy Cheese. You will forgive me for not knowing what Kraft Easy Cheese is. I subsequently have found out that Kraft Easy Cheese is cheese in a can that's dispensed in a sort of aerosol fashion. It comes out of a can almost like toothpaste, and I thought that would be a strange thing to be offering business partners or clients?

MR OGDEN: It would be, yes.

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: There's quite a bit of sliced cheese. I must say that struck me as more likely purchased for the purpose of putting on the children's lunches. That's the way it struck me. I could be wrong with that but that's the impression that I had. It really is quite a remarkable state of affairs that someone - and I suspect this but I don't know that there's really any way that I can become comfortably satisfied about it but I suspect that someone has gone through these receipts and ticked things, ticked items that maybe look as though we might be able to get away with in broad categories. The categories being cheese, biscuits, nuts and soft drinks. Because on a version of events, that's what's made available to clients and business partners, but it doesn't stack up. ...

Items such as a Dora the Explorer pencil case were 'items purchased for use by his children'.


Dora the Explorer pencil case

The deputy president later concluded: "Without wishing to labour the point, I note that Mr Ogden also claimed, as deductible "stationery", the following items – a wall chart, Texta colour pens, a "Dora the Explorer" pencil case, heart and star shaped stickers, crayons and art brushes. For the avoidance of doubt, I find that none of those were used in the course of gaining or producing his assessable income. Plainly, they are items purchased for use by his children."

Patio setting

DEPUTY PRESIDENT: "Mr Ogden also claimed a deduction for depreciation (to the extent of 50 per cent) of an outdoor patio setting comprising a table and several chairs. It was described as a "work table" and it seems that it was Mr McNeice who assessed it as being used for work purposes for 50 per cent of the time. Mr Ogden conceded that this was a setting that the family would "ordinarily" use. There was no reasonable basis for a depreciation claim to any extent, let alone 50 per cent. And yet a claim was made. At 50 per cent. For a patio setting, disguised as a "work table". Disgraceful.

The 'home office'

"This is a two-storey family home with a floor area of 282.76 m². Within the home there is a home office area of 5 m² which is used (but not exclusively) for work-related purposes. Measured by area, the home office represents 1.7682 per cent of the family home but Mr Ogden, on Mr McNeice's advice, claims to be entitled to claim, as a deduction against his assessable income, 31.6 per cent (reduced, progressively, to 24.3 per cent and eventually to 18.6 per cent) of his home loan interest expense. I find it difficult to understand how a registered tax agent could allow such a claim to be made.

"Whatever the figure is, Mr Ogden claims that it should be applied to home loan interest, building insurance, council rates, water rates and repair and maintenance costs so as to arrive at the amounts that would be deductible from his assessable income. No part of those outgoings was incurred in the course of gaining or producing his assessable income. No deduction is allowable.

Sunscreen and sunglasses


DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Commissioner has allowed 20 per cent of the cost of sunscreen purchased by Mr Ogden during the relevant years. That equates to a deduction of $29 for the 2011 income year and $47 for 2012.

Mr Ogden says that this is not enough: his claim is for five-sevenths of the total amount he spent on sunscreen. He wants an extra $75 for the 2011 income year and an extra $122 for 2012.

He also claims, in the 2012 year, a deduction of $274.50 for replacement sunglasses and $15 for repairs.

As far as I can tell, Mr Ogden does not drive a car with a sunroof, so there should be minimal exposure to the sun while he is driving. Nor does he perform his work functions outdoors. His circumstances, to the extent that they have been disclosed to me, are nothing like those of Mr Fennell or Mr Fitton, and they are nowhere near the circumstances that Goldberg J considered relevant to making good a deduction claim.

On the evidence before me I would allow nothing to Mr Ogden for sunscreen or sunglasses.

RM Williams 'safety footwear'

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: Mr Ogden claims a deduction of $383 in the 2012 income year for a pair of R.M. Williams rubber-soled shoes. It is described in his statement of facts, issues and contentions for that year as "Replacement of safety footwear".

In his affidavit, Exhibit A2, [Mr Ogden] described the basis for the claim in the following way, at [22]-[24]:


When I leave my desk I pick up static electricity from the carpet. When I was trained as a Computer Technician I was required to wear rubber soled shoes to protect against continual shocks from static electricity.

The Occupation Health and Safety manual from my first two employers both made an issue of the static electricity both from a Health and Safety perspective and also for the damage that is often caused to the computer hard drive in both the desktop computer and a laptop.

I wear my rubber soled RM Williams shoes Monday to Friday when working to prevent receiving a static electricity shock on each occasion that I returned to my computer.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: I must confess that in my entire life I have never heard this before. To be satisfied in relation to this claim I would need some evidence from an expert who could explain the science to me. I am not inclined to accept the proposition on Mr Ogden's assertion alone, especially since so much of his evidence in other areas has ranged from the exaggerated to the implausible. It looks to me like yet another attempt to have the Australian taxpayer, through the Commissioner, subsidise Mr Ogden's private expenditure. I reject the claim.

Secretarial services of son, 7

DEPUTY COMISSINER: I find that Mr Ogden's son did virtually nothing for his father by way of secretarial assistance or anything of that nature. Indeed, the evidence established no more than that the son sometimes ran upstairs to the study when the phone was ringing, answered the phone and then handed it to his father.

I also find that Mr Ogden paid his son nowhere near $5,388 during the 2012 income year. It is quite likely that he paid him some modest amounts of pocket money but that would have been completely unconnected with the "minimal" work that he did for his father. This claim, probably more than any other, casts both Mr Ogden and Mr McNeice in a most unfavourable light.

The next example I raise is very similar to the example of the Monte Carlo biscuits dealt with in [64] of these reasons. It demonstrates once again the indiscriminate claiming of deductions – this time for batteries. Mr Ogden's reasoning is that he sometimes uses batteries for work purposes. Therefore, he adds up all the amounts that he pays for batteries and then claims a deduction equal to 89 per cent of the total cost. There is no recording, and no analysis, of the extent to which any of that expenditure may be deductible. An apparently arbitrary 89 per cent is fixed upon as the deductible portion and the claim is made on that basis.