Creditor’s report reveals ATO was owed almost $3.4m by Toowong Private Hospital

A private hospital in Brisbane owed almost $3.4m to the ATO when it collapsed last month. Read what else administrators have found

The 58-bed Toowong Private Hospital is closing down and its largest creditor is the ATO.

A private psychiatric hospital in Brisbane’s inner west, that will be closed down after failing to find a buyer, owes the Australian Taxation Office almost $3.4m, while more than $1.2m is owed to staff.

The 58-bed Toowong Private Hospital, that has been operating since 1976 on Milton Rd, was owned by the renowned construction family NA Kratzmann & Sons.

Three weeks ago the company, trading as the Toowong Private Hospital, collapsed sparking a scramble by residents and families to find new accommodation.

Documents lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Friday revealed that the ATO was the largest creditor, owed almost $3.4m out of $3.75m.

The balance was owed to Gateway Providores and The Wholesale Fruit Co.

The first meeting of creditors, held on May 26, was also told 60 employees were owed over $1.2m.

The latest update comes with the ATO’s debt book ballooning to $85.9bn forcing them to take a more aggressive approach to tax debt recovery.

Last month Australia’s second largest private hospital operator Healthscope went into voluntary administration with $1.4bn in debt and its 37 properties have been put on the market.

The 58-bed Toowong Private Hospital is closing down.

EY Partner David Kennedy, who with Andrew Hanson, Robyn Duggan, and Colby O’Brien were appointed voluntary administrators on May 14, said at the time that Toowong Private Hospital owners faced challenges, particularly in the trading environment since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Two weeks later Mr Kennedy said they were unable to find a buyer and they have had to move to a “wind down plan”.

Toowong Private Hospital had been operating for almost 50 years and was acquired by builder and property developer Noel Austin Kratzmann who chaired the hospital board until his death in 1989.

As a builder in the 1950s Mr Kratzmann had companies based in Brisbane and Townsville, and won contracts for a number of large projects: hospitals, power stations, hotels – including Stanley Korman’s Chevron Hotel, Surfers Paradise – banks, buildings at the University of Queensland, and housing developments, both public and private.

Mr Kratzmann and his wife were patrons of the Twelfth Night Theatre, in the 1960s and helped to finance the company’s new theatre at Bowen Hills.

After his death, the family endowed the Kratzmann chair of psychiatry at the University of Queensland and assisted the university to restore the Customs House, its city campus.

Originally published as Creditor’s report reveals ATO was owed almost $3.4m by Toowong Private Hospital