Tax fraud in the magnitude of millions of dollars has led to a Hawke’s Bay contractor being sentenced to jail time of six years.

Rajpal Singh Dhillon was sentenced to six and a half years jail time by the Napier District Court on the 7th of May. He was found guilty of 50 charges of PAYE and GST tax evasion earlier last month. In aggregate it is estimate that $3,311,000 worth of tax evasion was perpetrated. The Inland Revenue Department is seeking to seize a residential property held in a trust controlled by Rajpal Singh Dhillon.

The fraud involved the falsification of invoices in a ring of three companies and 25 shared sub-contractors, between the years of 1998 and 2007. Similar schemes have been perpetrated in the agricultural industry. The last five years has seen 31 other people prosecuted for a total of $26.5 million worth of tax fraud.