Creative Mick stays ‘within the law’
With a $10 million tax bill, is the party finally over for underworld figure Mick Gatto, asks.
Purana and into Gatto’s the ATO rich and
Meanwhile were digging colourful past.
He was known to be a massive punter but his records could not be checked at Crown casino simply because police had placed him on the banned list.
He later considered sending then Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon a diamond ring because ‘‘she saved me a fortune’’.
He had worked as a top-end debt collector and a mediator in the building industry, both areas known for cash payments and laissez-faire paperwork.
He claims that having been hit with tax bills previously, his books are now ‘‘squeaky clean’’.
And though he was well aware his finances were again under scrutiny, he was surprised when his credit card was declined at a Sydney restaurant.
The tax department, he said, had seized his bank accounts and told his clients who kept him on retainer to pay them instead. Gatto and his family had been hit with a back-dated tax bill of $10 million.
So the man who had been called a stand-over man (a claim he denies) said the tax department was trying to stand over him.
‘‘They are trying to put me out of business. Now, I’m not crying because I am a big boy and I’ll get by because I have plenty of friends, but how is the average person supposed to fight something like this when they freeze all your money? It is simply not right.’’
The ATO has set up its own 100-strong audit team to investigate organised crime – a black industry estimated to turn over $15 billion a year in Australia.
It has been so successful it has seized more than $300 million in the past three years.
And tax officials are an integral part of a new national taskforce targeting Australia’s fastest-growing outlaw motorcycle gang – The Rebels.
Meanwhile Gatto has declared he will fight the assessment ‘‘tooth and nail’’.
He said that now his assets were frozen he would, ‘‘be forced to get creative. Within the law of course.’’ Of course.