Another case of fraud has been caught out by New Zealand Inland Revenue, this time sentencing a man to 8years in jail upon being found guilty. John Richard Bracken was guilty for 39 charges of dishonestly claiming and receiving $17 million of GST refunds, an offense that occurred between 2014-2018.
Judge Graham Lang found him guilty on all charges after an 8 day court hearing in Gisborne.
During the four years of the offenses, Bracken lodged false GST returns from his business transactions which allowed him to claim GST refunds. He did this with forged invoices to support his fictitious claims.
In 2017, an anonymous person was the reason why he was investigated as they were involved in preparing invoices for Bracken and were concerned about whether her actions were legal. This resulted in an investigation into Bracken’s activities in early 2018.
Karen Whitiskie, Legal Services Leader of Inland Revenue said she was pleased that the sentence was handed down and it “served as a warning” to anyone who thought they could get away with tax fraud.
Bracken was able to get away with it for 4 years until someone else had reported him to the Serious Fraud Office. Whitiskie says “There are many ways in which this type of offending comes to our attention and in this case, it was the actions of a concerned person who suspected dishonesty.”
John Richard Bracken has been sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in jail.