OnlyFans 'sugar daddy' and his wife embroiled in $61 million tax mischief

When Bridget Cotter began making money from explicit content at the age of 18 on OnlyFans, one subscriber was more generous than others, she says.

For three years, the man showered her with "random" extravagant cash gifts, including "$20,000 for drinks" when she was on holiday in Bali once, she says.

"He was a sugar daddy," Ms Cotter says.

"I provided a service to him online."

His name was Colin Kinnest, a thickset man in his 30s from the regional Queensland town of Bundaberg.

"He said he had businesses and I assumed he had a lot of money," Ms Cotter says.

Ms Cotter, now 21, says they met in person three times on the Gold Coast.

"He said he didn't have a wife, he said he lived at home with his mum," she says.

"I looked him up online and saw a picture with his wife.

"He probably does give off a 'dad' vibe — very quiet."

Eventually, Ms Cotter says, she came up with a bold proposal for her online patron.

In June last year, Ms Cotter became the owner of a freshly renovated, four-bedroom house in Coomera, in the Gold Coast's north.

It cost $867,000.

By the age of 21, Ms Cotter — a dental assistant — had her first home, no mortgage, and was earning about $100,000 a year from OnlyFans.

But Ms Cotter's enviable financial position was jolted last month when she received an alarming email while driving to Victoria to spend Father's Day with her family.

It was from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and contained a "penal notice" from the Federal Court explaining there was a "freezing order" against her and her house to the value of $867,000.

It warned that if she disobeyed the order she would be "liable to imprisonment, sequestration of property or other punishment", court documents show.

Ms Cotter says she abandoned the family trip and drove back to Queensland to face an unfolding legal drama.

"I was upset — it's a stressful situation," she says.

'He's having a crack'

Ms Cotter's Gold Coast house represented just a fraction of a $10 million splurge on property over two years by Mr Kinnest and his wife Ashlee.

It was funded by the couple's seemingly booming Bundaberg Indoor Sports business.

Mr Kinnest, 36, had cut his teeth as a junior finance officer at local sports clubs.

"I heard that he had set up his own indoor sports complexes," Troy Castro, a former treasurer at The Waves Sports Club, says.

"And I'm thinking, 'Ok, well, good on him, he's having a crack at something.'"

The couple's sports centre charged $100 for an indoor cricket team, $80 for a mixed netball team, and $10 a head for trivia nights.

Adrian Muller, who worked with Mr Kinnest before a legal dispute over payments for building work, says he was a "quiet, reserved fellow".

"[But] through the sports centres, he does know a lot of people," Mr Muller says.

"There's 300 or 400 people a night that used to go through the sports centre there.

From mid-2021, the Kinnests branched out into beach volleyball, an Inflatable World franchise, and expanded their operations to Brisbane and Logan.

Bundaberg Indoor Sports acquired three commercial property sites, while the couple's company Kinnest Family Pty Ltd held four bank accounts, five vehicles and various assets under 37 business names, according to property searches and Federal Court documents.

Mr Kinnest also invested, via a crowd-funding platform, in a sauce business founded by celebrity chef Manu Feildel.

Mr Feildel's business partner, John Beach, says he and the chef never met or spoke to their co-investors.

By August last year, Mr and Ms Kinnest boasted a swathe of mortgage-free investment properties across Queensland that earned them a gross rental income of more than $200,000 a year.

There were seven in her name and nine in his, including a million-dollar apartment near the beach at the Gold Coast.

Tax office paid out $30 million in 'false' claims

The couple's spending spree coincided with astonishing reported sales figures for a regional indoor sports enterprise.

Their businesses reported $537 million in sales between September 2021 and December 2024, according to a claim filed last month by the ATO in the Federal Court.

This was "excessive and out of character … particularly having regard to the price of its services", an ATO officer alleged in an affidavit.

For Bundaberg Indoor Sports, it equated to having 2.9 million netball teams, 2.3 million cricket teams, or 23 million people for trivia, he said.

The ATO alleged that the Kinnest family companies lodged false business activity statements to claim more than $39 million in Goods and Sales Tax (GST) credits.

According to its Federal Court claim, the ATO paid out more than $30 million before turning off the tap last August.

It is now seeking to recover $61.4 million including penalties.

In an affidavit, the ATO officer said the alleged "tax mischief" of Mr Kinnest and his companies "demonstrated an intention, willingness and ability to evade the correct payment of tax over a lengthy period for financial advantage".

The Federal Court last month froze all the companies' assets, Mr and Ms Kinnest's properties, his shares in Manu Feildel's sauce business, and Ms Cotter's house.

In a published ruling, Justice Stewart Anderson said there had been a "real risk of dissipation of assets", after Mr Kinnest failed to respond to the ATO's queries but moved to unload properties.

Before the assets were frozen, however, the ATO officer had raised concerns that they "may be insufficient to satisfy the tax-related liabilities".

The ATO investigation found the Kinnest family companies had already spent more than $425,000 on property improvement, about $218,000 in luxury goods — including $178,000 at jeweller Tiffany & Co — $213,000 on vehicles, and $188,000 on entertainment and gambling.

The ATO alleged that Mr Kinnest personally received $6.1 million, Ms Kinnest $2.9 million and Ms Cotter $867,000 in "proceeds of the false claims".

This did not include $157,248 that Ms Cotter received from Kinnest Family Pty Ltd in 22 payments ranging from $98 for "movie tickets" to $29,000 for a "jetski".

Mr Kinnest separately made 935 payments to OnlyFans over two years, according to the ATO.

The ATO claim continues in court.

Alleged tax debt 'catastrophic'

Mr and Ms Kinnest did not respond to calls and texts from the ABC.

The ATO says it "cannot comment about the tax affairs of any individual or entity due to our obligations under taxpayer confidentiality".

Solicitor Bruce Peters, who is acting for Mr Kinnest and the family companies, says if the allegations are true, he is "dumbfounded the ATO let this fly for a business when an average taxpayer gets hauled over the coals".

He says he is not aware of the ATO making any referral to Commonwealth prosecutors to consider any charges.

Mr Kinnest is "trying to keep the businesses afloat" and is negotiating to try and sell the properties himself rather than them being offloaded in a "fire sale", Mr Peters says.

Ms Cotter says she knew nothing about the tax affairs of Mr Kinnest or the source of the money he lavished on her.

"I was wondering how he was able to do it," she says.

"I haven't spoken to him for months."

She and her own partner now face the prospect of having their home sold out from under them.

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