Jail for theft of $1.7m that should have gone to community
Over a decade Gautam Kapoor stole more than $1.7 million from the community.
It was money that should have gone towards the nation’s roads, schools and hospitals, said Judge Chris Tuohy, before sentencing Kapoor to four years in jail yesterday.
Kapoor, 41, evaded paying tax for years by creating one company after another and providing false information. Last month, days before he was to stand trial for a scheduled four weeks, he pleaded guilty to six representative charges of evading tax payments totalling more than $1.7m between 2007 and 2018.
Vikas Menon, an employee of Kapoor’s companies who assisted with accounts, pleaded guilty to three of those representative charges. Menon, described by his lawyer as merely a ‘‘corporal’’ in the offending, was given a sentence of nine months’ home detention.
The total tax evaded was $1,759,576.89. Menon, 38, was charged in relation to $536,582.33 of that.
The charges related to tax evasion by 18 companies. None of the companies are still operating, so the two men were charged as parties to the offences.
Kapoor was the primary operator of the companies and liaised with clients, supervisors, accounts and the Inland Revenue Department.
Tax was evaded by various means. Sometimes the men would fail to file PAYE returns. Other times they would file false GST returns. They would deduct PAYE from employees wages but not pass this on to IRD.
They also falsely claimed to have purchased non-existent apples, entitling them to reduce their tax payments by $147,500. In respect of six companies, Kapoor changed the directorships to people who were overstayers in order to distance himself from the companies’ tax liabilities.
Crown prosecutor Clayton Walker told the court the offending was ‘‘systematic fraud’’ and said the Crown rejected any suggestion it was because of ‘‘faulty systems and struggling to keep up with compliance’’.
He said the amount evaded was a loss to the community as there was no possibility of reparation.
‘‘Everyone knows fraud when they see it,’’ and both men knew what they were doing, Walker said.
Kapoor’s lawyer Fraser Wood said the offending was not as sophisticated as the Crown made out, and he had got himself into a cycle of offending and had under-estimated the seriousness of his non-compliance.
Menon’s lawyer Philip Ross said Menon was a ‘‘corporal’’ in the operation and had felt bound to obey Kapoor’s directions.
Judge Tuohy said taxation was ‘‘the foundation for all services from the government; roads, schools, hospitals, law enforcement, defence, conservation, you name it’’.
Paying tax is ‘‘voluntarily accepted by the greater part of the community, even though people may not like it’’.
He granted an application from Kapoor to commence his jail sentence in two months’ time on humanitarian grounds. By that time Kapoor’s father will have returned from a trip to India and can assist Kapoor’s elderly mother in caring for Kapoor’s two children. Kapoor will start his fouryear jail sentence on July 7.