Melanie Jill Tatana, also known as Melanie Jill Smith, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on October 30 and jailed for three years for what the judge described as a case involving the wilful diversion of funds rather than business insolvency.
Tatana ran the Wigram-based company, Asia Pacific Group Limited (APG), which employed about 60 people and was required to deduct PAYE from workers’ wages and pay it to Inland Revenue.
On 63 occasions between August 2019 and September 2022, APG failed to pay the full amounts of $1,602,864.17.
As a result, Tatana was charged with 63 counts of aiding and abetting APG to knowingly take PAYE from workers’ wages and not paying it to Inland Revenue.
An analysis of APG’s bank accounts showed that more than $800,000 had been diverted for Tatana’s personal use.
Further significant funds had been diverted to Tatana’s personal bank account and her daughter’s bank account which Tatana was also using.
Tatana was sentenced to three years behind bars.
Judge Michael Crosbie said the offending was the worst of its kind to come before the Christchurch District Court in the last 20 years.
The firm also received more than $2.2 million in Covid-19 wage subsidies, along with $107,500 in governmental resurgence support payments, between April and May 2022.
Tatana was the sole director at the time of the offending, was the signatory on the bank accounts and dealt with Inland Revenue in relation to PAYE debt.
She was given several warnings, but the non-payment continued and in May 2021 she was told APG was under investigation for failure to pay PAYE.
The judge agreed with Inland Revenue that there was a lack of remorse shown by Tatana and pointed to the need for his sentence to denounce and deter behaviour of this kind.
He also noted that if everyone had done what Tatana did, we would be in state of chaos.
