Auckland house painter sent to jail for tax evasion

Auckland house painter sent to jail for tax evasion

An Auckland house painter, Rangi Ngawai Kake, has been sent to prison for more than two years for evading half a million dollars in taxes.

Kake was sentenced today to 26 months jail on six charges for not filing income tax, GST and PAYE returns for himself and his business, No Stress Decorators.

Inland Revenue spokesperson Tony Morris says Kake’s failure to file any tax returns meant he evaded $544,895.39 in tax.

“Kake wouldn’t co-operate with investigators and didn’t provide the information they asked for. As a result the missing tax has been worked out based on documents collected from third parties,” Mr Morris says.

“The actual amount is likely to be higher than assessed because Kake accepted cash payments for jobs that were not put through his bank accounts and he didn’t keep records of these jobs.

“He used the income from both his sole trader business and from No Stress Decorators for personal use. Bank records show substantial spending at TAB, Skycity, NZ Racing, Thoroughbred Tavern and from cash withdrawals.

“This was a deliberate abuse of the tax system which deprived other New Zealanders to the tune of just over half a million dollars in tax revenue. That money could have gone towards funding a range of important social services everyone benefits from.

“We take this sort of offending extremely seriously. The public should be assured that Inland Revenue will do all in its power to prevent tax cheats from evading their taxes on this scale,” Mr Morris says.

© Scoop Media