Jailed for key role in $105m tax scam

THE frontman for Australia’s largest alleged tax fraud will spend at least three years behind bars after the “brilliant” scheme was uncovered.

Joshua Meredith Kitson was the former general manager of Plutus Payroll – the company behind a conspiracy alleged to have defrauded the Australian Taxation Office of more than $105 million over three years.

The 37-year-old (right) pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to cause a loss to the Commonwealth.

He was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday to four years and six months in jail with a non-parole period of three years. The offence carries a maximum term of 10 years in prison.

Plutus operated under the guise of a payroll business, but was instead formed with the intention of fleecing the ATO of the pay-as-you-go tax and GST it was owed, the agreed facts state.

The scheme would see clients – which included a number of government agencies – transfer their gross payroll monies to Plutus with the expectation the company would then pay their employees’ wages and superannuation and the tax office.

Instead, Plutus would transfer the money on to a complex web of companies it subcontracted the work to – paying employees what they were owed and siphoning the money meant for the tax office back to the scheme’s co-conspirators. Fourteen people were charged over their alleged roles in the conspiracy.

The court heard Kitson’s role began in early 2014 when he was brought in as a frontman for Plutus.

He effectively acted as a “mole” or a “plant” for the remaining alleged conspirators and was responsible for bringing in clients, managing the staff of the business and ensuring it appeared “squeaky clean”.

Kitson himself said he “delicately f---en pulled strings around corners to make s--happen the way (he) wanted it to”.

Before the scheme backfired, Kitson had been so confident of it that he described it in discussions with his alleged coconspirators as “f---ing brilliant”.

Justice Anthony Payne said he was satisfied Kitson’s role in the hierarchy was “slightly below the principal architects of the conspiracy”.

“He was not the ... brains trust of the scheme ... (but his) role should be characterised as essential to the scheme,” he said.