ATO unrelenting in pursuit of tax bill

Cartoon: Peter Nicholson.

SELF-DESCRIBED “one-year wonder in the BRW Rich List” Steve Moignard’s war with the ATO over a $244,000 tax bill and another $187,000 in penalties is set to continue after a Federal Court skirmish.

Back in the first dotcom boom of the early 2000s Moignard founded Davnet, a telco whose market cap ballooned to $7 billion before the inevitable collapse.

By 2003 his Ferrari — number plate DAVNET — had been repossessed and he was attempting to settle $21m of personal debts for $350,000.

After a long-running investigation the ATO hit him with the tax bill in 2011. Moignard had it overturned at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal but the ATO appealed to the Federal Court. Yesterday, Justice Richard White said the AAT proceeding miscarried and ordered it begun again.

Moignard, who these days runs the Hundreds of Comaum vineyard in South Australian wine district Coonawarra, said a settlement was unlikely.

“How could I strike a deal with guys who have been chasing me for 10 years and have never taken a step backwards on issues where they’ve always been wrong?

“They’ve spent more than $3m on a case where they can’t recover more than $100,000 — and that’s if I had any money, which I don’t.

“I might just leave the country.”

Lunch with Dave

FORMER CBA boss David Murray got the old gang back together at lunch yesterday, with two of his comrades from the Financial Services Inquiry on hand to hear him hold forth.

Providing moral support at the top table during the Australian Centre for Financial Studies lunch at Melbourne’s Park Hyatt were former CSL chief Brian MacNamee and University of Melbourne professor Kevin Davis, who were both on the FSI panel.

Mark Burgess, who was managing director of the Future Fund during Murray’s time as chair, was also spotted, having a word in his old boss’s ear.

Banking veteran Burgess surprised with his resignation from the fund in September 2013 to return to the private sector but Margin Call isn’t sure what he’s up to these days.

Submissions responding to Murray’s final FSI report are due with government by March 31. But given the turmoil in Canberra, don’t hold your breath waiting for anything to happen.

Spring in their step

ENFORCEABLE undertaking? Craig Gore? Such things are clearly no concern for investors in financial planning group Spring FG, which is galloping towards an ASX listing next Monday under the stewardship of its chairman, former Macquarie Banker Guy Hedley.

Spring wanted $4m when it opened its offer in December, but it’s been so popular the company accepted an additional $450,000 in oversubscriptions.

Meanwhile, fine print in the prospectus shows Spring has yet to complete an enforceable undertaking entered into with ASIC over one of its licensees, Royale Capital.

Royale is linked to a US property scam, allegedly the brainchild of Gold Coast white shoe royalty Gore, who, along with his Swedish wife Marina, is awaiting Federal Court judgment in a case brought by ASIC over the imbroglio.

The EU was supposed to last about a year and Margin Call understands there have been big improvements in Spring’s compliance systems — but a messy process means one final report is due to ASIC.

Spring managing director Keith Cullen prefers to look to the future. “We’re looking at further acquisitions,” he said.

Shoot from the hip

WATCH out Australia, the boss of Taser is coming down under to spruik his electric zappers.

Taser International CEO Rick Smith unveiled his global road trip plans during an analyst call last week.

“Starting in June of this year I will be spending intensive eight week surges in key markets to drive momentum. Target markets include the UK, France, Italy, with the largest police force in Europe which also recently authorised the use of Taser, Australia and broader Asia.”

Shocking news.

Back to the future

IT was like the mid-2000s boom all over again yesterday when Nicholas Moore’s Macquarie Group announced the highly-geared purchase of a bunch of planes from AWAS Aviation Capital, an Irish-domiciled remnant of the old Ansett.

If this is a 2005-style deal, does that mean we taxpayers can expect to bail Macquarie out again in another three years?