An Auckland man has become the first person in New Zealand to be convicted and sentenced for aiding and abetting his company’s possession of electronic tools that helped evade tax assessments and payment.
Gurwinder Singh, who ran a pizza outlet called Just Pizza in Waiuku, was sentenced in the Manukau District Court on July 15 to seven months home detention on tax evasion charges and a charge of aiding and abetting his company for possessing electronic sales suppression tools (ESST).
As part of an Inland Revenue (IR) investigation, searches were carried out at his home and business.
Bank records were also obtained, and during an interview, Singh admitted he was hiding income from his tax agent so he could pay less tax.
Ex-employees confirmed the business employed four staff, including Singh, but PAYE returns indicated only two.
IR said Singh’s offending was planned, calculated, and required ongoing financial manipulation.
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“The total GST discrepancy from the offending is $78,777.09; income tax discrepancy is nearly $100,000; and the PAYE discrepancy is $21,337 – a total of just over $198,500.”
The department said ESST poses a “significant” threat to the integrity of the tax system.
“There’s no other purpose to ESST other than to facilitate tax evasion or money laundering. They’re being used globally to systematically alter point-of-sale data collected to understate or completely conceal revenue to evade tax.”
The sentencing was the first of its kind since April 2022, when New Zealand introduced laws making it an offence to acquire or possess ESST.
The Judge ordered the start date of the sentence to be deferred until August 20 to allow Singh to attend family funerals in Fiji.
