Belinda Neal chased for soccer club tax debt
THE tax office is pursuing former federal MP Belinda Neal for a $1.4million debt.
The debt has nothing to do with Ms Neal’s personal finances.
Instead, the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation has singled out Ms Neal to sue personally over a tax debt owed by the Central Coast Mariners Football Club.
For six years Ms Neal was a director of the Mariners, the A-league minor premiers for the past two years, until her resignation in November.
In choosing to pursue Ms Neal, the tax office ignored her five male co-directors at the time.
This has forced Ms Neal to commence her own legal action, cross-suing the Mariners along with its chairman Peter Turnbull, England-based property developer and co-owner Kevin McCabe, part-owner Michael Charlesworth, director and Wyong mayor Bob Graham and former director Lyall Gorman, executive chairman of the A-League.
Mariners chairman Peter Turnbull said yesterday the club had been ‘‘negotiating and working with the tax office’’ and he expected the matter to be resolved soon.
Mr Turnbull said he did not know why Ms Neal had been singled out by the tax office.
A statement of claim tendered in the NSW Supreme Court claims the defendant, Belinda Jane Neal, ‘‘was at the relevant times a director of the company’’. As such, she became liable to pay the tax office a total of $1.2million tax. With penalties and filing fees, the total amount being claimed is $1,447,639.
Ms Neal did not return the Herald’s calls and her solicitor Michael Osborne, the former NSW president of the Liberal party, declined to comment.
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