Through these years he garnered considerable notoriety. In those days he went to the local Methodist church, playing the organ at one service and singing in the choir at the other. Russell himself usually clocked up 100 hours of work each week, taking time out only to sleep, shower and to attend church twice on Sundays. He says it suited him to work this way, rather than renting office space. Because all 59 could not fit in the house at the same time, they worked in shifts, starting at 4 am and finishing at 11 pm. At his peak he employed 59 staff, mostly accountants, to keep the schemes running. Here he ran his financial advice and insolvency business, and perfected his tax-avoidance schemes, although he would never call them that. One would be at his seven-bedroom home in Pakuranga in the 1980s. ![]() There are two possible starting points in any story about John George Russell. Because Russell has no doubt he has played within the rules. "I can stand the heat," he says, proudly repeating Justice David Baragwanath's assessment of him: "Mr Russell gives as good as he gets." He wants to be sure he could have done nothing more to see that the IRD's "vendetta" against him is ended and that the "injustices" meted out by the Taxation Review Authority, the High Court, the Court of Appeal and, most recently, the Privy Council, are overturned. Although he says he will stop short of "flagellating myself for the rest of my life if I can't put it right," he still has plenty of fight. But Russell, who in his long and controversial career has been variously described as a corporate undertaker, commercial hazard and enemy of the state - the last description delights him - is not ready to surrender. Inland Revenue might say Russell could easily retire if he would just accept he is wrong, and that the convoluted schemes he has hooked numerous small business people into are, indeed, the type of tax avoidance the IRD can undo. "But I'm its only customer," he chuckles. He thinks it has now changed its name to the tax avoidance unit. Finding out about the Russell Team was somehow thrilling for its prey, who saw it as evidence of the department's obsessive and irrational pursuit of him. There was until last year a team of about 20 Inland Revenue investigators dedicated to JGR, as he is labelled in the numerous judgments against him. "If you're involved in a vendetta, you have to pay the price," he says. All he will say about his income is that he has spent close to $2 million on legal fees, defending his schemes through the courts. Fast cars, flash boats, fancy houses and slick suits have never interested him, he says. The only nod to the times is a television set and stereo with CD player. Patterned brown and orange carpet, gold dralon-covered couches pushed against the walls, crocheted cushion covers, a tiffany lamp, a gilt-framed copy of Constable's Haywain and an organ in the corner. The decor at Kawakawa Bay has not been changed since, at a guess, the 1960s. ![]() ![]() He doesn't look like a man you would suspect of bringing misery to ordinary people's lives, nor like a man who has made millions of dollars out of his schemes. Instead it is keeping him busy with a raft of litigation including issuing 226 prosecutions "against me personally" in a move he calls "vindictive as hell." In the meantime, as many as 3500 people, according to Taxation Review Authority Judge Paul Barber's estimate, could be " having their lives ruined by financial stress which seems likely to continue for years and years" because they, their spouses, parents or employers answered an advertisement offering a way to release the funds in their businesses and cut a deal with John George Russell. But he says Inland Revenue won't let him. At 67, John George Russell would like to be enjoying a relaxed retirement, gazing through the rickety ranchsliders at the glistening waters of Kawakawa Bay, playing the church organ at the local Presbyterian church, maybe even reading Dickens. ![]() A series of legal defeats going as far as the Privy Council has not dimmed John George Russell's appetite for a fight but, as JAN CORBETT reports, some of his clients have wearied of the anguish.
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