SingTel paid $6.2 billion to Cable & Wireless of the Netherlands for its 53 percent majority share in Optus but the company has commenced a lawsuit with the Tax Office.
Cable & Wireless claims that only $134.5 million of the $586.9 million it paid in tax to the ATO in September 2001 was legal.
Before payment of the tax bill, the ATO had ruled that $3.9 billion of the amount paid to Cable & Wireless by SingTel was a dividend, and therefore should be taxed at 15 percent.
C&W – which had been wound up following the SingTel deal – applied to be revived as a company in the mid-2013 in its home country, the Netherlands, in order to put forward its case for a $453 million refund from the ATO.
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