Australian ‘micronation’ must pay £1.8m in taxes

Australia’s oldest “micronation” – the Principality of Hutt River – has been ordered to pay more than £1.8million in taxes owed from 2006 to 2013 after a judge dismissed its legal claims to sovereignty as “gobbledegook”.

The ruling by the Supreme Court of Western Australia came four months after His Royal Highness Prince Leonard I, the 91-year-old selfproclaimed ruler of the province, abdicated from leading the 18,000acre farm 300 miles north of Perth.