A Western Australian man has been sentenced in the Perth District Court to three years jail after pleading guilty to dishonestly obtaining and attempting to obtain a financial advantage by deception. The man attempted to obtain almost $230,000 in fraudulent GST refunds he was not entitled to. In addition to his criminal conviction and jail term, he was ordered to repay $187,486 in reparations. The ATO welcomed the sentence handed down, saying among other things, that “[t]his was not a careless or accidental mistake; this was a deliberate attempt to gain money he was not entitled to by repeatedly reporting sales and claiming GST refunds from a business that wasn’t trading.”
