John Symond told his advisers he had three goals when the company was restructured in 2003: to unlock equity in the business; to preserve existing tax losses; and to continue to borrow funds tax-free without any tax problems to complete the construction of his home.Symond borrowed money through Aussie and the restructure involved the creation of a new special purpose trust for the handling of Symond's loans.Symond's tax adviser, Ross Seller of Gadens Lawyers, also recommended an issue of redeemable preference shares to Symond, to capitalise his loans. Symond could withdraw funds from Aussie by redeeming the preference shares issued by the new corporate vehicle.Between 2004 and 2006, Symond redeemed $57 million of preference shares.In 2004, the Australian Taxation Office started looking into Symond's tax affairs, and, in 2006, it formed the view that the redemption of preference shares was "a de facto dividend distribution from profits and should be treated as such."It also said that it had formed a preliminary view that the redeemable preference share structure "was not a necessary part of the Aussie group restructure and was implemented to enable Mr Symond to access untaxed profits of the group in a tax free form."The resolution of the tax matter involved Symond agreeing to pay an additional $5.9 million of tax, a penalty of $600,000 and interest of $445,000. The payment was made in August 2008.Symond sued Gadens and Abbott Tout (where Seller went in 2005) for negligence and breach of contract. Abbott Tout settled for $1.85 million.The court found that Gadens was negligent and in breach of its "contract of retainer" with Symond.