Coroner & Legal
Back off Walsh, says Brown
A TAX Office lawsuit seeking $37 million in back taxes from MONA founder David Walsh could cast a shadow over plans to expand the museum.
Mr Walsh yesterday said he had hoped to add a hotel and a science and art museum to the award-winning Museum of Old and New Art but he was reluctant to while a massive retrospective tax bill hung over his head.
The ATO has launched Federal Court action seeking to force Mr Walsh to pay tax on gambling profits it alleges he made in 2004 to 2006.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown yesterday called on the ATO to back off in its pursuit of Mr Walsh, lest Hobart lose its premier tourist attraction.
Mr Walsh, who made his multi-million-dollar fortune through gambling, says he had gone out of his way to meet his tax obligations.
“In the 80s, the 90s and the naughties, as they’re sometimes called, we’ve requested rulings and they’ve always been favourable in the sense we’re not taxable,” he said.
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Dr Brown yesterday said he had been campaigning for months to spare Mr Walsh from the Tax Office.
“I’m not an advocate for gambling, nor am I for David Walsh,” he said.
“The Tax Office was contacted over decades by the big-time gamblers including David Walsh to ask if they had to pay tax. They were told ‘No, we don’t tax gambling’.
“Some time in 2006, the Tax Office decided that it would tax gambling. The problem is that they didn’t tell Mr Walsh …