POLICE, Education and Children’s Minister Lin Thorp has been forced to fork out almost $3000 after the Australian Taxation Office ruled a trip to Europe last year was half for holiday purposes.
The State Government confirmed yesterday, after a week of questioning from the Mercury, that Ms Thorp had been required to pay $2852.64 to state coffers for incurring an unexpected Fringe Benefit Tax liability.
Ms Thorp paid the debt yesterday morning, eight months after adding a two-week holiday in Portugal and Greece to a five-day working trip to London last July.
Ms Thorp’s trip attracted public scrutiny last year after a key report on a 12-year-old girl, who was under a state protection order and came to be sold for sex by her mother and a pimp, remained sitting on her desk in her three-week absence.
Questions were also raised by the Mercury last year about the financial propriety of the three-week trip.
They followed queries from tax experts asking if the lengthy holiday component would make the State Government, and the Tasmanian taxpayer, liable for a hefty Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) fee on top of the $17,000 flight cost and combined expenses of Ms Thorp’s London work trip.
Ms Thorp also took her friend Sandie Shepperd on her European jaunt.
Ms Shepperd, who is employed as an education adviser in Ms Thorp’s private ministerial office, but was not the adviser who would have been expected to accompany the minister on a study trip dedicated to improving youth justice and children’s services, has also been required to pay $2852.64 in perks tax to the State Government.
The women’s husbands joined Ms Thorp and Ms Shepherd in Portugal for the two-week-long beach holiday.
