Much more to play out in this in the future, obviously there is...

Much more to play out in this in the future, obviously there is a strong element of transfer pricing in the past, some tax evasion, corporate malfeasance and failures, attempting to sidestep FIRB and professional malpractice from various Receivers and Administrators and even Independent Experts. It seems like the ATO has come up with their own assessment of the tax payable, which they are capable of doing and very almost a reverse onus of proof in their arsenal to recover what they claim is unpaid tax. The ATO just want the $$ for taxpayers and are probably a bit late to the party as a lot of the money has obviously been spirited away to HK and China long ago. I suspect the ATO is just being lazy here and is taking the easiest path of least resistance to recover the unpaid tax by sticking someone in Australia with the tax bill - as opposed to chasing it up in Hong Kong/Singapore/China and the USA and/or a combination of these jurisdictions.

As well as the Federal ATO Tax issues we still haven't heard from the WA State Government yet, who might be waking up the the fact that maybe they got diddled out of state royalties somehow as well.

Would be pretty funny if Chris Ellisons "bargain" $100M lowball acqusition of Bald Hill came with a $200M tax bill. If he hadn't done such a sweet inside deal with McGrath Nicol he might even end up taking them to court in the future! There might be some tax credits hiding in this all somewhere as well but due to the number of holding compaines and the murky dealings between a lot of these companies and thier complex structures will result in a lawyers and forensic accountants picnic to untangle it all.

Will be interesting to see if the Professional Indemnity insurance for McGrath Nicol ends up left holding the bag for all this. If that happens then we are also still yet to see any regulatory investigation into the actions and motivations of McGrath Nicol and I can see a lot of people there who will consider themselves to be lucky if they get out of this with an extended period of gardening leave.

My prediction is that Chis Ellison is smart, and has the best lawyers, and he will eventually get the asset and leave McGrath-Nicol with a lot of lawsuits and state and federal regulatory investigations. If it works out that Chis Ellison or MIN has to stump up a bit of money for this to go away, I imagine he would prefer it go to the ATO and the WA Government, and leave preferably leave Austroid there on their own without a dime, wouldn't that be karmic?

Certainly A40 shareholders seem to have an ever increasing array of companies/administrators/government bodies and agencies and professional indemnity insurers that they can take to court in the future.

Someone is going to get a hell of a good book/TV/podcast documentary out of this when all the details start coming out.