Thread: Why is it we almost never hear about the BIG tax cheats?

The trial is just starting in Perth for 4 guys who defrauded the ATO out of $25 million. But there seems no media coverage of the case since march.
A far cry from the winners’ circle

Yet single mothers who get $500 they are not entitled to seem to be big news...?

My late father's accountant was a man renowned in Brisbane business circles as the "go to" when the tax man looked like leaving you standing homeless in the street in your underpants, or worse, booking you into the stone hotel in Annerley road.

He was telling us one day of a bit of a victory he negotiated on behalf of a well known (if infamous) used car dealer who made his fortune in the boom years from the end of WW2 to the 60's. ATO demanded $3,000,000+ for unpaid taxes and penalties. The accountant negotiated this down to a bit over $1,500,000. As they left the tax office the dealer said to him that he supposed he should go and get the money and pay straight up to save some interest. "What do you mean by go and get the money?" "Well, I've got a stash put by for a rainy day" says the dealer. "Jesus H. Christ, you have got a swag you haven't told me or them about. We'll both end up in gaol if you go and pay straight up. You have to sell some of your properties and draw it out and ask for time to pay. Make it look good." He told dad he then did a severe upward revision of the fee he planned to charge and request payment in cash from the hoard.