Te Kuiti based store owner and accountant has been given 12 month jail for PAYE evasion and GST fraud.

James Ivan Woollams, owner of Cabana Gifts in Te Kuiti and accountant, has pleaded guilty to 76 charges involving PAYE and GST fraud. In the time between April 1998 until March 2004 James Woollams employed five shop assistants, in that time he failed to pass any of their PAYE deductions to Inland Revenue.

The fraud was discovered when the employees approached Inland Revenue wanting to know why they had no earnings recorded to their name. Request were sent for records to James Woollams, but were ignored. Statute demands were then issued, but also ignored.

Investigations yielded evidence of $21,483 in missing PAYE deductions and $3,784 was understated in GST. This amount will need to be paid back, and at the time of writing this was yet to occur.