Dear Australian Taxation Office,

I notice the ATO is responding to Right To Know FOI requests by attaching a PDF with further instructions to obtain other information from the ATO FOI Order website rather than simply attaching all relevant information to your email response.

This has the effect of making it more difficult for the public to access the contained information and I question the justification to send correspondence in this manner.

This is an FOI request for all documents that explain the reasons for the ATO decision to process FOI requests in this manner.

There is a cost associated with retrieving material from your website and this cost can exceed that required by an individual to retrieve an email from their own email service. While the cost may be minimal for some, it may be too much for others, particularly those who are disadvantage or have high costs for downloads in regional areas or where the NBN has hopeless covered. For these reasons I urge the ATO to send all correspondence directly to the email address from which Right To Know FOI requests are sent.

Yours faithfully,

Harry Houdini