A former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) employee has been convicted and sentenced for falsely claiming Victorian and Australian Government payments using the sensitive information and records of 4 taxpayers.
Kasey Harries was sentenced to a total effective sentence of 5 months imprisonment. She had previously pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including obtaining financial advantage by deception and aiding and abetting another person to attempt to commit an offence.
This conviction and sentencing stems from Operation Hay, a joint investigation commenced by the former Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI) and the ATO. The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) took on responsibility for this and other ACLEI investigations on commencing operations on 1 July 2023.
The investigation obtained evidence that, between October 2020 and April 2022, Harries used sensitive taxpayer information, obtained through her employment at the ATO, to create false accounts purporting to be operated by real taxpayers, and fraudulently claimed up to $60,000 in COVID-19 Test Isolation Payments and income tax refunds.
Harries was granted bail, pending an appeal against the sentence to the County Court of Victoria. The appeal is listed on 9 February 2026.
This is the eleventh successful conviction resulting from an investigation the NACC has either initiated or continued since commencing operations. The matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth).
See full list of convictions obtained by the NACC at nacc.gov.au.
