Former Qantas Director ordered to pay $A7m tax
A Sydney Morning Herald Report says that former media executive and Qantas Director Trevor Kennedy was ordered yesterday to pay almost $7 million to the Tax Office, opening the way for a possible prosecution over secret share dealings in the printing company Offset Alpine.
The full bench of the Federal Court dismissed an appeal from Mr Kennedy over an earlier decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In February, the tribunal held that the former Qantas director had failed to declare $4.6 million in income which he allegedly earned from a parcel of shares in Offset Alpine.
The late stockbroker Rene Rivkin told Swiss authorities in 2002 that he owned a $27 million parcel of Offset stock with a former Labor powerbroker, Graham Richardson, and Mr Kennedy.
The Tax Office is claiming $2.1 million in tax from the income on the $4.6 million in a Swiss bank account, plus a penalty of $1.9 million for taking “steps to prevent or hinder” the Tax Office from collecting the money.
A further $2.8 million in general interest charges meant Mr Kennedy’s total liability is almost $6.96 million. His amended assessments of income tax were for the financial years 1993 to 1996 and 1998 to 2000.
The Full Court’s judgment rejected his claim about the “doubtful authenticity” of certain Swiss documents which he said the Tax Office had relied on to form the view “that there was fraud and evasion by Mr Kennedy”.
In 2003 Mr Kennedy, Mr Richardson and Mr Rivkin became embroiled in a scandal after The Australian Financial Review revealed they were owners of a mystery $27 million shareholding in Offset Alpine, which reaped its investors a handsome insurance payout after its premises burnt down in December 1993.
Mr Richardson and Mr Kennedy have denied owning any Offset Alpine shares.
Mr Richardson is also fighting the Tax Office, which says he owes $2.3 million for failing to pay income tax on $1.44 million derived from the Offset Alpine share dealings.
The former cabinet minister’s case, which is expected to come to trial later this year, centres on a $1.44 million deposit in the name of Laira Investment Company in the Bank Leumi le-Israel in Zurich in 1997.
Documents filed in court by his lawyers admitted he obtained money from Bank Leumi, but Mr Richardson said the money was not taxable income but gifts from Mr Rivkin “in appreciation of the close friendship that existed between them”.
A Report by The Mole from The Sydney Morning Herald
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