A Christchurch builder has been sentenced to seven months of home detention for failing to declare more than $260,000 in tax.
Gary Terence Moss, who arrived in New Zealand from the UK in 2014, evaded Inland Revenue (IR) for over a year and fled to Australia soon after being told of an audit investigation in 2023.
He appeared in the Christchurch District Court last week for sentencing on one representative charge and one single charge of evading or attempting to evade the assessment or payment of income tax. He was also ordered to pay $20,000 in reparations.
After coming to NZ, he began working as a builder, going self-employed in 2016.
IR said he had not declared any salary or wage income since, as well as not filing tax returns from 2019 to 2022 and filing a false income tax return in 2023.
In May that year he was told of an imminent audit by IR after statements for bank accounts linked to him showed he had received undeclared income.
That same day, he looked into a quote to move household goods to Australia, as well as telling IR he would file the outstanding returns.
He then paid a travel agency and airline, requested early release from his tenancy, and filed the false 2023 income tax return.
Moss left for Melbourne in July 2023 and ignored attempts by IR to contact him.
He accessed his myIR account a number of times from a Perth IP address between May and July 2024, but did not open any web messages.
In September 2024, he returned to New Zealand and accessed his account from a Dunedin IP address, but again did not open any web messages.
Charges were filed by Inland Revenue against Moss in that month, with his income tax shortfall calculated at $267,368.09.
In February this year, a tax agent hired by Moss filed amended income tax returns for the 2019-2023 period, but these were not accepted because they failed to include income received into another of Moss’ bank accounts.
