For serious tax fraud involving sophisticated planning and misuse of professional position, a head sentence of four to six years' imprisonment is within the appropriate range for conspiracy to dishonestly cause a risk of loss to the Commonwealth under s 135.4(5) of the Criminal Code (Cth). The parity principle cannot be applied where co-offenders are charged with different offences carrying different maximum penalties without accounting for those differences, and an inappropriately low co-offender sentence should receive little weight. The Crown is bound by its position on sentence at first instance and will not ordinarily be permitted to advance a different position on appeal absent exceptional circumstances. The residual discretion to decline to intervene on Crown appeals survives the statutory abolition of double jeopardy.
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