Prison and home detention sentences have been handed down to two men who used horticultural contracting companies to evade over $1.7 million of tax between 2007 and 2017.
Gautam Kapoor was the principal director and Vikas Menon the in-house bookkeeper, for 18 different companies that operated in the Kapoor group of companies, supplying seasonal workers to growers or other contractors.
Kapoor was given 4-years in jail and Menon 9-months home detention. They had pleaded guilty to 39 charges (Kapoor to all 39 and Menon to twelve of them)
IR customer segment leader, Tony Morris, said a feature of the offending across all charges was the prevalence of cash transactions, attempting to make company activities less traceable.
“And the evidence that was key to identifying the evasion by Kapoor’s companies, included overstating both costs and sales, and invoice dates that didn’t line up with timing of work carried out,” he said.
Inland Revenue had been in regular contact with Mr Kapoor to try and ensure compliance, but Kapoor had consistently provided incorrect and misleading information, as well as repeated assurances that returns would be filed. But they never were.