[ad_1]
photo: supply
An Auckland woman has been sentenced to home detention for trying to claim nearly $60,000 in coronavirus relief payments.
Samantha Paul applied for funds through the Small Business Cash Flow Scheme for three different taxpayers, one on behalf of her own company and another in her own name. The ATO said she knew she was not entitled to any of the funds.
She also allegedly illegally accessed a myIR account.
The three unrelated taxpayers were clients of a tax agency she worked for in 2018 and 2019. She retained her myIR login details, which enabled her to log in and view their tax information.
She claimed $59,000 in benefits, but received just over $47,000 before she was caught. The ATO said about $12,000 was recovered.
The money was paid into her account and that of her colleague Jason Gray.
The ATO said the cash flow scheme operated on a “high confidence” model to allow small businesses to access funds quickly.
This was allegedly a case of community theft.
Paul was sentenced to 23 months in prison, but the judge reduced it to 11 months of home detention, noting she had a young child to care for.
Gray was sentenced to 20 months in prison in May last year for dishonestly using cash flow planning application forms to obtain nearly $14,000. He was also sentenced for forgery and breaching home detention conditions.
Paul was told that if she committed another offence while in home detention she would be sent to prison.
The Small Business Cash Flow Program offers five-year loans with no repayments required for the first two years.
Generally, no interest is charged in the first two years.
A total of 129,491 individuals and organisations have received small business cash flow loans, according to the ATO.
Of these, 9,223 defaulted and 932 have now been repaid.
[ad_2]
Source link
