PAYE offending ends with home detention sentence

A Christchurch man who deducted PAYE from his workers’ wages but didn’t pass it on to Inland Revenue was sentenced to 10 months home detention.

Frederick Mario Mau Epiha pleaded guilty to 16 charges of aiding and abetting a company he set up to knowingly apply PAYE deductions and was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on 30 September.

Phoenix type behaviours

The court was also told of ‘phoenix type behaviours’ by Epiha.

Before incorporating Redemption Solutions Ltd (RSL) in May 2022, Epiha worked as a Manager for Asia Pacific Group Limited (APG). He re-established APG's business under a new company (RSL) without changing or addressing APG's compliance behaviour.

Epiha knew of APG’s tax arrears but incorporated RSL to take over APG's trading business and continued to operate the business in a similar manner to APG.

In 2024, the director of APG, Melanie Tatana was sentenced to three years imprisonment for aiding and abetting APG in failing to account for PAYE of $1,602,864.17.

Epiha’s offending

RSL was incorporated on 4 May 2022 as an employment services company operating out of both Auckland and Christchurch, with Epiha as sole director from 22 October 2022.

RSL was tax non-compliant from the outset and was placed into voluntary liquidation by shareholder resolution in April 2023.

Between May 2022 and March 2023, RSL was required to file PAYE returns each month. Epiha failed to pay the full amount between August 2022 and April 2023 leaving an unpaid PAYE of $215,043.24.

Deliberate and repeated offending

The court was told the real victims are New Zealand taxpayers and that offending of this nature poses a threat to the integrity of the tax system. 

Offending of this kind also creates an unfair financial advantage over other businesses in the same industry, potentially encouraging other industry participants to commit the same offending to compete on a balanced playing field. 

The PAYE offending was deliberate, premediated and repeated. It continued despite warnings from Inland Revenue and confirmation from Epiha that he knew RSL's failure to pay its employees’ PAYE to the Commissioner was a criminal offence.