Brisbane man fears bankruptcy as ATO ask for $437,000 in unpaid employee super contributions

A Brisbane man is determined to fight back against the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) after he was issued a letter saying he owes $437,000 in unpaid super contributions.

According to the ABC, the ATO is alleging the company Andrew Christodoulou ran for 22 years, which went into voluntary administration in 2016 and shut down three years later, owes superannuation to workers it employed at the time.

Some of the alleged debts date back to April 2013 while Christodoulou was a director of the security firm, Kudos Australasia.

The tax office wasn’t using their power to recover tax and super debts during the pandemic but now post pandemic, they have been going hard to recoup money it says current and former directors owe.

“It rocks up on the doorstep. And my wife opens it with the rest of the mail. And it essentially says in no fewer words that you owe $437,000. You have 21 days to pay it,” Christodoulou told ABC.

“How the hell could I owe $437,000 — it is more than my mortgage.”

The notice arrived the day after his 52nd birthday.

He is currently working to resolve the dispute but legal fees are piling up, and he fears of bankruptcy.

Christodoulou also said he believes unpaid super debit should be dealt with at the time, when it can possibly be afforded, not years later.

He is paying $100 a month toward it and when he gets his personal tax refund, the ATO automatically take the money out.

But one problem he has with the ATO is “there is no open channel for communication.”

He added that the stress of the situation has led to him contemplating self-harm.

“I wasn’t one of those business owners that Phoenixed my company, I had the business in my own name, I took full responsibility for running my company. I did everything by the book.”

“You’re allowed to make mistakes, and you’re allowed to be held accountable for those mistakes, but not 11 years down the track.

“There should be a process in place to stop the ATO from bullying people, from scaremongering people and from going after them essentially without anything holding them back.”