Tax scheme designer and perennial IRD battler 80 year old John Russell has had his offer to settle a tax bill of around half a billion dollars rejected by the High Court.
Mr Russell has been fighting the IRD for several years and the bulk of the claim against him is interest and
penalties.
The IRD issued a bankruptcy notice to Mr Russell in April following his proposal to settle the debt at the
rate of $1000 a week. He was issued a tax bill of $75 million when tax arrears and claims incurred between
1985 and 2000 were assessed to him personally.
His tax schemes were complex arrangements that the Court of Appeal has previously labeled as being
blatant tax evasion. His consistent challenges to the IRD claims have come down to the latest claims by
the IRD.
Associate Judge Hannah Sargisson this week rejected both Russell's proposal and his bid to set aside the
notices issued by the IRD.
"In a situation such as this, where Mr Russell has knowingly engaged in large-scale tax avoidance over a period of years, and wasted large amounts of public money on unmeritorious challenges, the broader public interest is clearly engaged against setting aside the bankruptcy notices," she said.
"It is true that the core tax debt is a very small proportion of the total debt, and that the difference can be attributed to interest and penalties {and interest and penalties on those sums, compounding over a period of years). I can understand how Mr Russell, faced with a debt of this size,
might think that the law itself is unjust.
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