He was charged with knowingly providing false information for personal income tax returns, not providing required income tax returns and intending to evade the payment or assessment of tax.
He was also charged with tax evasion and aiding and abetting his company Paintplas Ltd to evade the assessment or payment of tax.
Lam was sentenced in the Manukau District Court on 25 July and was sentenced to 6 months community detention, 200 hours community work and ordered to pay $150,000 in reparation.
Lam worked as a painter for various companies he operated.
In 2017 and 2019 Lam filed false personal tax returns which didn’t include his self-employed income. He evaded paying just over $11,000 in 2017 and around $17,000 in 2019.
In 2018, he received self employed income but didn’t file any income tax returns.
His company was required to be registered for GST but wasn’t. In October 2018 Lam filed a NIL GST return which allowed him to evade paying more than $13,000 in GST. In 2019 it was $72,000 and in 2020 it was $121,000.
In total, Lam evaded the payment of $411,617 in tax.