Former tax agent Philip Ham ordered to pay more than $1.2m to woman whose husband died 11 years ago

A disgraced former tax agent in Brisbane has been ordered to cough up more than $1.2 million to a woman whose husband passed away 11 years ago.

PAYING OUT

A disgraced former tax agent in Brisbane has been ordered to cough up more than $1.2 million to a woman whose husband passed away 11 years ago.

Philip Ham served as executor and trustee of the estate of Graham Bryant and paid monthly distributions to his widow, Juanita Miller, starting in 2008.

But Miller sued Ham in the Brisbane Supreme Court in March alleging that, after five years, the payments became routinely late and were only made after repeated requests.

Since 2017, distributions were sporadic and 13 payments remained outstanding, her claim says.

“These developments were distressing to our client, who relied on the distributions to meet her living expenses,’’ lawyer Bill Hickey wrote in an affidavit.

Miller says in her sworn statement that she had sought information about the capital and income of the trust since April last year but had received no response.

She also alleges that a request to retrieve $178,204 from the 2003 sale of a home and four years of tax refunds worth more than $34,000 have been “met with obfuscation, delay and unfulfilled promises to pay’’.

“Our client has serious concerns as to whether the assets of the estate and trust have been properly administered and, indeed, whether those assets have been wrongfully dissipated,’’ Hickey wrote.

Justice David Boddice presided over a consent order in late April which saw Ham transfer $1 million to Hickey’s trust account that same day.

Brisbane Supreme Court Justice David Boddice.

Another $263,424, comprised of money from the home, interest and tax refunds, is set to be paid at the end of this month.

Ham, who resides in a $4 million riverfront unit at New Farm and is understood to be on a luxury cruise, could not be reached for comment yesterday. His lawyer said he no longer served as executor of the estate.

First licensed as a tax agent since 1989, Ham was unable to renew his registration in 2017 after the Tax Practitioners Board determined that he was not “a fit and proper person’’.

That decision was based on a Supreme Court case which saw a former client sue him for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty related to the sale of a block of land for $4.9 million.

Justice Anthe Philippides ruled for the client in 2014, noting that Ham had kept the gent “in the dark about the manner in which he was dealing with the property’’ and was “consciously acting dishonestly in paying away the proceeds of the sale’’.

Ham fought the TPB move to strip him of his tax rego but the decision was upheld by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. His subsequent appeal was thrown out by the Federal Court last November.

In case this wasn’t enough, the peak body for chartered accountant subjected Ham to disciplinary action in 2015 and stripped him of membership in the organisation.