By Sharon Webb

A Mole Creek family who recently closed their Chudleigh business, having owed the tax office more than $2m, will be severely missed, according to the owner of the Chudleigh Store.

The Beerepoot family who own the Melita Honey Farm have sent a postcard to households in the Meander Valley announcing the closure of the business from June 30.

‘Our family has recently been through a series of legal challenges’, the postcard said.

‘Whilst these issues have been largely resolved we have had to make some decisions as to how we move forwards.

‘In order to remain true to that in which we believe we have decided to close our store. This wasn’t an easy decision to make.’

Chudleigh Store owner Mandy Wyer said the Beerepoots were an integral part of Chudleigh, selfless, community-minded people.

‘It’s not just about the honey farm, it’s the contribution they’ve made. They were integral to planting the town’s roses and getting tourism going here,’ she said.

‘It’s a traumatic upheaval for them and I hope they’ll stay in the area but I think they won’t.’

In September 2017, Meander Valley Council sold the home of siblings Fanny Alida Beerepoot and Rembertus Cornelis Beerepoot and their mother Alida because they owed rates.

The council auctioned Blue Wren Hideaway, a house on 2.4 hectares in Mole Creek, for $120,000 to recoup the rates, unpaid because the Beerepoot family owners believed the land was ‘owned by God’.

After the council deducted around $15,000 for the rates and auction costs, it returned approximately $105,000 to the Beerepoot family.

But it is believed that Rembertus Beerepoot returned $105,000 in cash to the council because the family viewed the auction as a hostile sale and didn’t wish to collude with it. Meander Valley Council has not yet stated the whereabouts of that money.

Subsequently the new owner of Blue Wren Hideaway, who bought it sight unseen because the Beerepoots would not allow inspections, found $50,000 of the property’s fixtures and fittings were missing or damaged.

The property has since been sold again.

In addition, in July 2019 the Beerepoot family was ordered to pay more than $2 million to the Australian Taxation Office after failing to pay income tax on the grounds it ‘goes against God’s will’.

The ABC reported that Fanny and Rembertus Beerepoot faced the Supreme Court of Tasmania after they failed to pay an estimated $930,000 in income tax and other charges in 2017.

Representing themselves, the pair told the court they had previously paid income tax prior to 2011 but a deepened spiritual relationship meant they later realised paying tax was ‘against God’s will’.

Without a specific reference in the Bible supporting their argument, Associate Justice Stephen Holt ordered they pay an estimated $1.159 million and $1.166 million respectively, covering income tax debt, administrative costs, interest charges and running balance account deficit debts.