Steve Baxter

yeah flagstaff hill so um and so yeah we did that install 14 phone lines at our army mary quarter and that was in mid late late 94 um and that went fantastically well to be honest end up getting a year off leave without paying 90 in 95 and then got an early discharge about four months early from a nine-year sentence in in 1995 and that just went went off moved into the city uh built that business to about 65 staff 35 000 customers sold that in around the turn of the century

I actually sold that in two halves.

And the first half was under the old capital gains tax regime, which was, you know, non-indexed.

It was indexed as what the new government's trying to bring in at the moment.

Yeah.

That sent me instantly libertarian.

And I think that the tax rate was higher than 47 cents back then too.

And I remember, I was like, oh, that sensation now.

I almost vomited when I realised how much tax I was going to pay from after all those years of hard work.

And we mortgaged houses and did all sorts of stuff.

So that was... Am I allowed to be really rude and ask how much tax you did pay?

It wasn't a massive win.

We had a business partner as well, so it was combined about $5 million between us.

Back in the day, though.

Yeah, look, you know, our home cost $150,000, so, you know, $145,000 or something, I think, so the house wasn't too much.

The second tranche was under the new scheme.

So we've got a half payment upfront and half about a year later.

And the second part of that was under the new scheme, which is a lot better.

I think paying roughly 20 something percent of that type of entrepreneurial capital-based win is a fair price to pay to participate in society.

I mean, there's very few people avoid that.