April 26, 2023
Māori trust claims used in tax evasion
A Bay of Plenty man who claimed his fertiliser distribution company was not subject to New Zealand law because it was vested in a Māori trust has been sentenced to home detention on six tax evasion charges.
Stephen George Gibson Clark of Opotiki also claimed Inland Revenue should contact the Nga Tikanga Maori Law Society, a known anti-tax movement associated with Ewan Campbell, who was a former shareholder in the company Probitas Systems NZ Limited.
Campbell was prosecuted for large scale tax evasion in 2015 and sentenced to imprisonment for four years and nine months.
Sentencing judge Tony Snell said Clark had taken every legal challenge he possibly could, but the jury found Clark acted fraudulently without any difficulty at all.
Clark was sentenced to four and a half months home detention and ordered to pay $30,000 in reparations.