Q. What is phoenix activity?
Phoenix activity is "the evasion of tax and other liabilities, such as employee entitlements, through the deliberate, systematic and sometimes cyclic liquidation of related corporate trading entities".2
In some instances of phoenix activity only one entity within a group of companies will be liquidated, whereas in other cases the corporate group covering the whole business will be stripped of assets and liquidated. Due to the diversity of phoenix activity, it is difficult to precisely define.
Consultations with stakeholders identified a range of alternative and complementary approaches to defining phoenix activity. Based on a range of considerations, the following definition has been developed:
"Phoenix activity is the deliberate and systematic liquidation of a corporate trading entity which occurs with the fraudulent or illegal intention to:
- avoid tax and other liabilities, such as employee entitlements
- continue the operation and profit taking of the business through another trading entity."