Mooloolah Baked shuts shop with $800k ATO debt

A hinterland bakery has closed its doors with a $800,000 debt, as an “aggressive” ATO debt revival threatens the future of Sunshine Coast restaurants and cafes.

Mooloolah Bakery, Bray Rd, Mooloolah Valley. Picture: Patrick Woods.

A much-loved local bakery has been shut down by the Australian Taxation Office as they pursue a debt of more than $800,000.

The company, Mooloolah Baked Pty Ltd was placed into liquidation on March 13 following a Federal Court order.

The bakery, which was established in 2018, was directed by Shane Richard Dixon according to Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents.

Liquidator at SV Partners, Jason Cronan, said the Mooloolah Valley store had closed shortly before liquidators were appointed.

“The ATO wound up the company, claiming to be owed more than $800,000 (tax and superannuation). A large portion of the debt includes interest and penalties,” Mr Cronan said.

Mr Cronan said Mr Dixon, who employed a total of 12 staff, indicated a further $30,000 was owed to creditors.

“It’s too early to say with certainty what the cause of the liquidation is, however it appears from a preliminary view that the company has not been trading profitably for a period of time, given the amount of debt owed,” Mr Cronan said.

Mooloolah Bakery, Bray Rd, Mooloolah Valley. Picture: Patrick Woods.

The liquidation of the bakery comes shortly after the Sunshine Coast company behind the Caloundra waterfront bar, The Celler and Sandbar Cafe was also forced to close their two venues down.

ASIC documents revealed the holding company, D.M.A.H Enterprises Pty Ltd, owes more than $500,000 to the ATO.

Director of The Celler and Sandbar, Derek Murphy said a culmination of increasing rent and cost-of-living pressures reducing discretionary spending had impacted the company’s profitability.

Sandbar Cafe, The Celler and a local bakery close their doors with hundreds-of-thousands in ATO debt.

According to liquidator and principal at Worrels, Paul Nogueira, the construction and hospitality industries on the Sunshine Coast were expected to suffer the most as the ATO “aggressively” seeks to recoup around $80bn of debt across the country.

Mr Nogueira said issues unique to each sector made businesses vulnerable, leading to more insolvencies when faced with hefty debts.

“Obviously what we have seen during covid is a couple of issues within the construction industry, we had fixed price contracting in place and coupled with that the cost of construction has increased significantly,” Mr Nogueira said.

“In relation to hospitality that is a flow-on from the cost-of-living crisis, price increases we have seen, mortgage and interest rates increasing, the feedback we are getting from the industry is people have a lot less discretionary spending available.

“It only takes a small move to cause a fair bit of turmoil in those hospitality industries.”

Mr Nogueira said while the ATO paused recovery action during the covid period, businesses continued to accumulate debt.

“That support has overly encumbered a lot of businesses that now have a huge amount of ATO legacy debt sitting there, and with the ATO being quite brutal that is seeing them look to insolvency options,” Mr Nogueira said.

Mr Nogueira warned business-owners not to keep their “heads in the sand” when it came to ATO debt.

“Coming into the very slow period for hospitality on the Sunshine Coast, being winter, post-Easter we are likely to see an uptick in insolvencies in that area,” he said.