A number of Australians banking in Liechtenstein are set to be hit hard with bills totaling 60 million dollars (44 million U.S. dollars) as part of efforts by the tax office to recoup 100 million dollars.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) took such action to claw back the money after a former employee blew the whistle on the dubious business practices being undertaken by Liechtenstein's LGTbank.
Heinrich Kieber, who once worked in the LGT bank and blew the whistle on the goings-on in the tiny European principality, is now in witness protection.
The ATO has so far recovered 4.5 million dollars, but said it hoped to get back as much as 100 million dollars after inspecting a stack of documents given to it by Kieber, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported Monday night.
Australia's richest man Frank Lowy has also been caught up in the drama after he and his son Peter Lowy were named as clients of the bank during a U.S. Senate committee hearing into the matter.
The Senate committee's chief investigator, Bob Roach, has told ABC Television's Four Corners program that the Lowy account was one of the largest his team looked at, and complex in its structure.
"It was roughly ... a little over 60 million dollars involved," Roach said during an interview aired on Monday night.
However, Roach pointed out it was Peter Lowy, a US citizen, who investigators were interested in because of his tax obligations in the US.
The Lowy family has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, insisting that a 54 million dollars was not designed to hide assets in an effort to evade tax.
The ATO said that over the next three weeks, it would be issuing assessment notices seeking 60 million dollars from various LGT clients.
Source: Xinhua
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