A Feilding man was sentenced to home detention on tax evasions charges totalling more than $600,000.

On 18 September in the Palmerston North District Court Fortune Shumba was sentenced to 12 months home detention and 200 hours of community work.

Shumba was a telecommunications installer in the lower North Island and was the sole director and shareholder of Technical Workforce Limited (“TWL”) and sole director of FS Fibresolutions Limited (“FSFL”).

He faced representative charges of aiding or abetting another to take deductions from staff wages but didn’t pass it on to Inland Revenue; and didn’t provide GST returns with the intent to evade the assessment or payment of tax.

Shumba’s companies had to file GST returns on a 2 monthly cycle. From August 2017 until November 2018 GST returns were filed but not paid in full. After that no GST returns were filed for ten months.

TWL filed all its PAYE returns from June 2016 to October 2020 but then failed to pay the following 36 months of PAYE by their due dates.

FSFL filed 17 PAYE returns to October 2020 but failed to pay tax on seven of those PAYE returns.

The total tax not paid by the due dates is $682,059.04. Late payments and transfers total $12,174.51. The total core tax that remains unpaid is $669,885.04.

Shumba was also ordered to pay reparation of $50 per week for the next 5 years.

© Scoop Media