Accountants, lawyers, a former liquidator and a migration consultant have been caught up in an investigation into a massive alleged tax-evasion scheme that raises further questions about Australia's corporate regulatory system.

Key points: Philip Whiteman and a supporting cast of accountants, lawyers and associates will be examined in the Federal Court over a massive alleged tax evasion scheme

Philip Whiteman and a supporting cast of accountants, lawyers and associates will be examined in the Federal Court over a massive alleged tax evasion scheme The public examination is expected to be the biggest ever by a liquidator in Australia's history

The public examination is expected to be the biggest ever by a liquidator in Australia's history Whiteman has been under investigation by the ATO for allegedly advising clients how to "phoenix" companies

Forty-five people were yesterday issued with a summons ordering them to appear in the Federal Court for what is expected to be one of the biggest public examinations held by a liquidator in Australian history.

Accountancy firm Pitcher Partners is investigating the activities of self-described "wealth creator", bankrupt and banned accountant Philip Whiteman, who is accused of helping predominantly small and medium businesses cheat the tax office and other creditors of at least tens of millions of dollars.

The ABC first exposed the activities of Mr Whiteman and a network of his associates in 2016, revealing that he was helping some of his clients to strip assets and cash out of their companies before liquidating them and starting up again debt free under another name.

The illegal practice is known as phoenixing and is estimated to cost the Australian economy billions of dollars a year.

It has flourished partly because of lax enforcement of tax debts, and the ease with which company details can be altered to let company directors evade responsibility for debts.

In the most recent federal budget, the Government announced tens of millions of dollars in initiatives to tackle phoenixing, prompted at least in part by the ABC's reporting on the issue.

Last year, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) forced five companies controlled by Mr Whiteman — A & S Services, Armstrong & Shaw, DNV Accountants, Bolton & Swan Solicitors, and Ainslie Harding & Wood Solicitors — into liquidation and appointed Pitcher Partners to forensically examine the workings of his operations.

Liquidator to conduct public examinations

ATO officials carried out a number of raids on Mr Whiteman's offices and seized reams of documents, including client files and emails sent between the staff of the four companies.

Phillip Whiteman is the man at the centre of a massive ATO investigation. ( ABC News )

During one raid, in October last year, Mr Whiteman tussled with Pitcher Partners and ATO staff in the street as he tried to forcibly take back confiscated files.

Now the Federal Court has granted the liquidator permission to conduct public examinations of Mr Whiteman, his alleged accomplices, victims and other people associated with his operations.

Those summoned must answer the questions put to them, and must answer truthfully, or they can be charged with contempt or perjury.

In a statement, Pitcher Partners said the public examinations would begin in August.

"For more than a year, my staff and I have been investigating the affairs of, and the conduct of, these businesses," Pitcher Partners director Andrew Yeo said.

"The orders made by the Federal Court and the summons issued to 45 examinees will compel evidence to be given in connection with my investigation."

Those summoned include solicitors Jonathan Kenny of the firm Kallus Kenny Intellex, and Craig Nixon, Natalie Geros, Joshua Watson and Mr Whiteman's ex-wife Sherife Ymer, who all worked for Mr Whiteman's law firm Bolton & Swan.

Mr Kenny has also represented another alleged phoenix facilitator exposed by the ABC, Steven O'Neill, aka Steve Marks, who controlled companies called SMEs R Us and Solvecorp.

Fake job scheme

Also compelled to appear is Pauline Borch, the director of a Melbourne firm called Career of the Day, which finds jobs in Australia for people wanting to migrate here.

As well as facilitating phoenixing, Mr Whiteman is also alleged to have masterminded a scheme whereby fake jobs were created in Australia, allowing people overseas to apply for and receive working visas to fill those positions.

Christopher Somogyi, who was installed as a dummy director, has been summonsed. ( ABC News )

The ABC has been told that those clients would arrive in Australia, then continue to pay money to Mr Whiteman and some of his associates, and that money would then be "washed" through another company and returned to them to create the illusion that a salary was being paid.

Disgraced liquidator Andrew Dunner, who worked with Mr Whiteman, is another to be summoned.

Mr Dunner was last year convicted of rorting the Federal Government's employee entitlement guarantee scheme.

Tax accountant Paul Kleores and Noel Ridler, who claims on his LinkedIn account to have worked as a manager and executive for at least two of the big four banks, were also issued with summons.

The Whiteman case is potentially a further blow to the reputation of the regulatory authorities and other government agencies, which allowed him to continue operating for years, despite numerous complaints by victims and tip-offs from people familiar with his activities.

Dummy director tactic

One tactic used by Mr Whiteman was to install "dummy directors"— often vulnerable people such as drug addicts or the homeless— in clients' companies, so when the business went under, the liquidator could not question the real director about the company's history.

Books and records were also allegedly destroyed to hinder the liquidator.

By using his clients' "corporate key" — a code that allows you to go into the ASIC database and alter company details—Mr Whiteman could switch out the directors, and even backdate the appointment to create the false impression the "dummy" had been in place for years.

Marisa Sampieri was unwittingly named the director of a number of companies. ( ABC News )

He did this with impunity for years.

A number of these dummy directors have also been summoned to give evidence in the public hearings.

Mr Whiteman's activities also highlighted the ATO's apparent unwillingness or inability to chase the tax debts of his clients, most of whom owed less than $1 million when their companies went into liquidation.

A provisional report tendered by Pitcher Partners in the Federal Court last year gave an early glimpse at the sheer scale of Mr Whiteman's activities.

In it, Mr Yeo said Mr Whiteman and his associates might have committed so many breaches of corporate and criminal law they could not be individually listed.

However, Pitcher Partners' investigations are confined to the five Whiteman-controlled companies they were appointed to, and only go back as far as 2010.

Mr Whiteman is known to have controlled other entities, and those familiar with his activities have alleged he was operating in this fashion long before 2010.