Clutz property guru banged-up and off the roll

Former partner in over his head with house purchase and renovations ... False rental expense claims in tax returns ... Defrauding the Commonwealth ... Bankruptcy, jail, struck off ... General ruination 

Livanes: former pillar of societyBOY OH BOY. What a grisly mess for former Clayton Utz partner George Livanes. 

He's bankrupt and banged-up doing porridge for six years, with three and a half on the bottom, for defrauding the Commonwealth. 

To add insult to injury he's been struck from the jam roll with Ruth McColl JA's hurtful words ringing in his ears, such as: "not a person of good fame or character ... not a fit and proper person ... guilty of moral turpitude." 

Enough already. 

George falsely claimed rental expense deductions in his tax returns, amounting to a whopping $3.4 million over 12 financial years, from 1991 to 2002. 

This was a total benefit of over $1.6 million after the application of his marginal tax rate. 

The horror stretch began in in 1989 when he purchased a house in West Street, Balgowlah Heights for $1.3 million. 

It was financed with a $1.37 million loan from NAB and he spent $750,000 on renovations. 

He and his family occupied the West Street house between September 1991 and December 2003. 

Throughout that period it had never been rented. 

The deductions he claimed represented the cost of owning and maintaining the family home. 

Livanes previously owned a house in Beatty Street, Balgowlah, which had been rented between August 1993 and October 1994 for $500 a week. 

17 West St: at the heart of all the strife

Livanes did not declare that income in his tax returns. 

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to offload the Beatty Street house, and it eventually sold in December 1994. 

The last of his tax offences occurred in 2002. Throughout Livanes contested the charges for which he was convicted, claiming he had advice the scam was kosher.  

As recently as April 2011 he was denying that he had defrauded the Commonwealth. McColl said: 

"There is no evidence of repentance." 

Clutz's former senior property guru and pillar of society, was, and is not, sufficiently fit and proper. He's eligible for parole in time for Christmas 2014. 

See: Court of Appeal reasons