An Auckland super yacht interior designer was sentenced to 11 months home detention and ordered to pay a quarter of a million dollars in reparations towards unpaid tax.
Charles Stuart Robinson was sentenced in the Auckland District Court on 16 December on 40 charges of aiding and abetting two companies – Robinson Interiors Ltd (RIL) and Platinum Window Systems Ltd (PWSL) – to take PAYE from staff wages but not pass the money on to Inland Revenue (IR).
Robinson was the sole director and shareholder of both companies.
As employers both companies had to deduct PAYE on behalf of employees, file the returns by their due date and pay the deductions from employees to IR by the 20th of the following month.
But from August 2018 until February 2021 RIL did not pay IR any of the $688,563.44 due as PAYE. From February 2019 until February 2021 $217,293.41 in PAYE from PWSL went unpaid.
An analysis of Robinson’s bank accounts showed that trade creditors were paid in preference to PAYE and funds were transferred between companies. He also paid more than $122,000 to his bank account to pay personal bills such as private school fees, personal rental payments, and to Louis Vuitton.
As well he claimed more than $250,000 from COVID-19 relief schemes, including the Small Business Cashflow Scheme. He has not paid it back.
Robinson was adjudged bankrupt in May 2022 and both companies were placed in voluntary liquidation.
The total assessed PAYE not paid by the due dates is $905, 856.85.
In court, Inland Revenue told the Judge that if the sentence was to be home detention it should be near the maximum allowed because of the gravity of the offending and the luxury $7 million property where he would serve his sentence.
In his Judgement His Honour referenced the James case in that “There is nothing more corrosive to a society than an individual earning high levels of income and avoiding tax”.
11 months home detention is just one month shy of the maximum allowed.