Forum Archive Index - June 2001

[nickkearney <nk@xtra.co.nz>]

Philip & Co

Good on him I say.  Tax is evil & destructive.

Zero company tax i say.  And while we're at it, personal tax can be
reduced to!

Just to let you all know of my extreme ideological views.

NK


Philip Robinson wrote:
> 
> 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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