Crown to contest $250 million tax bill from ATO

Sunday 14th of February 2016

Crown Resorts has announced it has received an amended assessment from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) for a total of $250 million (US$178.9 million) in respect to income tax paid for financial years ending Jun. 30, 2009 to Jun. 30, 2014 and plans to contest the bill.

According to the announcement, the amended assessments are related to the tax treatment of some of Crown’s investment in Cannery Casino Resorts and other investments in North America over the last few years.

Crown also received a notice of penalties of up to $112 million, making the total claim from the ATO at around $362 million.

Crown says it believes it has paid the correct amount of taxes and thus will “pursue all available avenues of objection (including, if necessary, court proceedings),” the casino operator wrote in the ASX announcement.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Crown did not comment on the specifics of its challenge against the ATO, but released a statement regarding its tax payments in the 2015 financial year.

"Crown Resorts is a model corporate citizen and pays its fair share of taxes," said a Crown spokesperson. "In financial year 2015 Crown paid more than $640 million in taxes to all levels of Australian governments, which amounts to almost two-thirds of Crown's Australian normalised profit before tax."

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