Forum Archive Index - June 2001

[Philip Robinson <robph639@student.otago.ac.nz>]

The link doesn't work so jere is the article From: The Australian

Barrister paid no tax for 40 years

By Martin Chulov 
June 07, 2001

ONE of the nation's leading barristers told a bankruptcy hearing yesterday
he had not filed a tax return since the early 1960s – and even the tax
office was surprised.

John Cummins QC, who declared himself bankrupt in December and announced
his retirement soon afterwards, told the Federal Court he felt "terrorised"
each year that he failed to file returns.

The period in which Mr Cummins failed to pay tax covers almost his entire
working life. He was admitted as a barrister in NSW in 1961 after four
years practising as a solicitor.

Life at the bar proved profitable. By 1980, Mr Cummins had been appointed a
Queen's Counsel in NSW, Victoria, the ACT and the Northern Territory – and
he was also admitted to practise law in England, New Zealand and Ireland.

He became an expert on defamation, environmental law and personal injury,
with an impressive list of cases.

But by December last year things had somehow turned bad, and Mr Cummins
filed for bankruptcy, listing the Australian Taxation Office as a
significant creditor.

The tax office was made aware two months earlier that Mr Cummins had not
filed a tax return since 1992, and won a Supreme Court judgment against him
for $973,378. 

But revelations of at least an additional 30 years of tax-free legal
practice have shocked senior tax officials. 

The tax office did not reply last night to questions about how anyone, let
alone such a high-income earner, could have escaped the taxation net since
close to the day of their first pay cheque.

Staff would only point to the tax office website, which names barristers as
having more than 10 times the average tax debt of normal taxpayers. 

The tax office annual report for last year says the average level of debt
per occupation is only 2.6 per cent, but more than 20 per cent of
barristers, doctors and accountants are tax debtors.

"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that some of these people use
insolvency to avoid their tax obligations to the Australian community,"
says Commissioner Michael Carmody. 

The examination of Mr Cummins's affairs extends to the sale of half his
Hunters Hill property to his wife in 1987, and the transfer of shares in
his Parramatta chambers to a private company. 

Under laws announced by Attorney-General Daryl Williams yesterday, the
Federal Court will have stronger powers to annul bankruptcy, and trustees
will be more able to object to automatic discharges from bankruptcy.

The Cummins hearing will resume on June 20.





_______________________________________
Philip Robinson
Wellington School of Medicine
University of Otago


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