IRD staffer jailed for taking money

A long-time Inland Revenue employee has been jailed for stealing $265,000 by manipulating internal systems so money was paid into his own account.

However at his sentencing at the Auckland District Court on Monday, Judge Ema Aitken noted that the reasons for 36-year-old Michael Joseph Marsom’s offending were not clear because he didn’t immediately spend the money.

Marsom admitted four charges of dishonestly accessing a computer system for pecuniary advantage, and a further four of dishonestly using a document to obtain tax refunds.

In relation to the former, Marsom changed the details of a taxpayer and added his own bank account details to their information, noting in the system that the person was entitled to a refund when they weren’t.

During his nine-year employment at IRD, he made four separate transactions into his own account.

The first was for more than $200,000, and three further amounts of $21,000, $8000, and $29,000.

The $265,000.

The court heard that for a long time the money sat in his account.

‘‘He wants to make it clear to the court that he didn’t know what he was going to do with the money when it was obtained,’’ Marsom’s lawyer Fraser Hawkins said at sentencing.

‘‘It’s very odd behaviour I have to say,’’ Judge Aitken said.

Only later did Marsom invest the money into starting three businesses, which he later used to fraudulently to claim more than $125,000 in GST returns by submitting fake invoices; $31,452 was paid out.

Marsom received sentence reductions for an early guilty plea and his previous good character and lack of convictions. The end sentence was two years and six months. - Fairfax NZ total amount was