Wellington basketball team owner, restaurateur Nick Mills given another three weeks to settle tax debts after deal falls through

Nick Mills has been given another three weeks to come up with a plan to settle his tax debts to save his hospitality businesses. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A last-minute change of plan has resulted in a judge giving Wellington Saints basketball team owner and Newstalk ZB radio host, Nick Mills, another three weeks to figure out how to settle his tax debts to prevent his hospitality companies being liquidated.

The businesses at stake include Lyall Bay café Spruce Goose, Los Banditos Mexican restaurant and Wellington Sports Café, as well as Siglo and Boston on Blair, which have now closed. Issues involving the restaurant Hummingbird have been settled.

Mills has been battling Inland Revenue for about nine months in relation to an undisclosed sum of tax debt.

The parties are so at odds they couldn’t even agree on whether they’d struck a deal on how to proceed.

“My client’s position is there is an agreement,” Mills’ lawyer Mike Lennard told the High Court at Wellington on Tuesday.

“I understand the department disagrees with that.”

Inland Revenue’s lawyer Julia Snelson explained that late last week, the tax department accepted a payment plan proposed by Mills.

But Inland Revenue believed something Mills put forward late on Monday afternoon changed the terms of the agreement.

“So, as it stands currently, there is no agreed payment proposal,” Snelson said.

Associate High Court judge Andrew Skelton agreed to adjourn the matter until March 18. If the problem wasn’t solved by then, he said the companies would be liquidated.

During a hearing on February 4, Lennard asked the court for more time for Mills to find the cash to reduce his debts. He said Mills had put his personal assets and businesses up for sale.

On Tuesday, Snelson said a proposed sale in relation to the company that trades as Spruce Goose had fallen through.

Accordingly, the judge said Inland Revenue could go public with the fact it was applying to liquidate the company. Previously a restraint of advertising prevented it from doing so.

Lennard told the Herald Mills wasn’t proposing to sell any of his businesses at this stage.

Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald’s Wellington business editor, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.