And finally… not a prayer

Rembertus Cornelis Beerepoot and Fanny Alida Beerepoot, of Tasmania, had not paid income tax since 2011.

The Supreme Court of Tasmania heard how the pair had been served two notices of their debt and had failed to lodge their tax returns.

Their farm was seized and sold by their local council in 2017 after they failed to pay seven years-worth of rates amounting to some $930,000 in income tax and other charges.

The siblings represented themselves in court on Wednesday where Ms Beerepoot said: “We don’t own anything because we are [God’s].”

Mr Beerepoot had argued that the law of God is the “supreme law of this land” and making people pay tax was weakening their dependency on God, an act which was leading to “curses… in the form of droughts and infertility”.

“Transferring our allegiance from God to the Commonwealth would mean rebelling against God and therefore breaking the first commandment,” he said, according to the public broadcaster.

In his judgement, Associate Justice Stephen Holt said that while he believed the Beerepoots’ beliefs to be genuinely held rather, he said there was no specific reference in the Bible to support their argument.

“In my view, the Bible effectively said that civil matters and the law of God operate in two different spheres.”

The siblings were ordered to pay similar sums - Ms Beerepoot A$1.17m and Mr Beereport A$1.16m - to cover “income tax, administrative penalties and general interest charges” and other costs, court documents show.