Phil had a bird’s nest of entities, each owing more than $100,000 in tax when we met him. It goes without saying he was incredibly stressed. Particularly because his business had slowed and a number of major projects had been cancelled.

He was left with bills from the ATO and creditors and no money to pay them.

Threats began to come in from the ATO, Phil was facing a real risk of receiving a Directors Penalty Notice which would call into question his personal solvency, and his reputation was on the line too with a potential breach of directors duties.

Our first task was to negotiate with the ATO to sort things out. Then we set about untangling the mess and restructuring things so that Phil could meet obligations without loss of personal assets and reputation. The best option was to liquidate some of the entities over a period of time, which we worked through together.

We worked with Phil to help him tighten cashflow significantly so he was able to make debt repayments and keep the office and staff. Phil was able to work through the strategy we developed, avoid prosecution with the ATO and ASIC. He is now cashflow positive again and relies on us to manage all his accounting and tax compliance for peace of mind.

* This is a real case study, we’ve just changed the client name to protect their privacy.