Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Tauranga barrister and wife convicted for multiple tax evasion offences

Sandra Conchie
By Sandra Conchie
Multimedia Journalist, Bay of Plenty Times·Bay of Plenty Times·
22 Aug, 2021 09:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Tauranga barrister Joseph Michael (Mike) Chand and his wife Aneeta Kumari Chand were sentenced in the Tauranga District Court on August 16. Photo / NZME

Tauranga barrister Joseph Michael (Mike) Chand and his wife Aneeta Kumari Chand were sentenced in the Tauranga District Court on August 16. Photo / NZME

A Tauranga barrister must serve seven months' home detention for multiple tax evasion offences totalling $92,000 which he paid to Inland Revenue just days before sentencing.

Joseph Michael Chand, 67, appeared in the Tauranga District Court on August 16 for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to 17 representative charges.

The 17 charges were failing to provide income tax returns with the intention to evade the assessment or payment of tax for the income years 2005 to 2020.

Each charge attracts a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or a $50,000 fine.

One of the representative charges related to his failure to file 16 tax returns on behalf of his wife Aneeta Chand for the same 16 year income period.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Each charge attracts a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or a $50,000 fine.

Aneeta Kumari Chand, 66, a lab technician manager, also earlier pleaded guilty to 16 charges of knowingly failing to provide income tax returns.

Her charges attract a maximum fine of $25,000 for the first offence and $50,000 for each subsequent offence.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

More details of the couple's offending were revealed during a lengthy sentencing hearing presided over by Judge Thomas Ingram.

Chand, a self-employed immigration barrister and his wife, who works in the healthcare industry as a lab technician/manager, knowingly failed to file these tax returns.

Discover more

New Zealand

NZ hits 2.5m vaccine mark, five new Covid cases in MIQ

16 Aug 01:13 AM

Battle of the cities: Rotorua v Tauranga in premier rugby finals

15 Aug 09:41 PM
Rugby

Former Bay player and All Black Greg Rowlands dies

15 Aug 08:47 PM

Pāpāmoa incident: Woman charged with having offensive weapon

15 Aug 07:56 PM

This was despite having received business and employment earnings, as well as income from their sizeable rental property portfolio.

The court also heard that since 1993 Chand repeatedly sought multiple extensions of time to file the required returns, and engaged in protracted communications with Inland Revenue.

He also provided numerous and repeated excuses for not doing so, and that continued during the 16-year period this prosecution related to.

That included health issues, various difficulties obtaining information, being too busy due to work, study and family commitments, Covid-19 concerns, as well as being stressed.

Inland Revenue's prosecutor Daniel Phillips argued the starting point for sentence must be prison or at very least home detention for Chand, who was the principal offender.

Phillips said the amount of tax Chand had evaded totalled $92,000 and his culpability was "very high" and both defendants' offending was "entirely intentional".

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In the Inland Revenue Commissioner's view, this offending was the result of a "deliberate and premeditated campaign" by Chand to try to avoid his tax obligations, he said.

Numerous warning notices and late payment notices were sent to him and the defendant made numerous requests for extensions and yet still failed to file returns, he said.

Phillips said the IRD Commissioner accepted that Judge Ingram must take into account that all outstanding returns were filed on July 29 and all tax owed now paid.

However, Chand's offending in particular, over such an extended period was a "significant breach of trust" against the integrity of the tax system, he said.

Phillips submitted a fine of between $6250 and $8750 for Aneeta Chand was appropriate for each of her 16 charges.

The Chands' lawyer James Coleman argued that a sentence of community detention and a possible fine for Chand was more appropriate.

And a $750 fine for each charge for Mrs Chand, he submitted.

Coleman said this prosecution related a "very unusual set of facts" as did not involve any fraud by the couple but rather failures to file returns in the required timeframes.

"Mr Chand had made tax payments between 2005 and 2020. He would have been entitled to a refund if the returns were filed earlier, and missed out on taxable donation credits."

Coleman said that was why he took issue with the Inland Revenue Commissioner taking into account the full $92,000 assessed income tax.

Despite the Chands' guilty pleas, there was no deliberate attempt to evade the payment of tax, and this offending was "at the lower end of the culpability spectrum'.

Judge Ingram soundly rejected the proposition, particularly given that Chand was "a highly successful experienced barrister of the court" over many years.

"The tax system is not only about the Government collecting appropriate revenues from its citizens but also about fairness between citizens in paying their fair share of tax."

"I accept this was not an intention to evade payment of tax but if Parliament had intended it to be treated as a less serious offence, the penalties would have been lower," he said.

"I must denounce you Mr Chand for wilfully failing to meet your obligations ... The purpose of the tax system is equity and transparency ... Those who don't pay tax, live on the cheap, and that is no minor matter.

"Mr Chand, your continued and repeated requests for deferments and offering excuse after excuse over many years only adds significantly to the gravity of your offending.

"For someone so well educated and clearly knowledgeable about your legal obligations, this is a very serious matter, Mr Chand," the judge said.

Judge Ingram sentenced him to seven months' home detention after taking into account his guilty pleas, remorse, age, previous good character and ill-health status.

The judge fined Mrs Chand a total of $32,000 and ordered her to pay court costs, after also taking into account her guilty pleas, her age, remorse and prior good character.

The couple were both first-time offenders before the courts.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty Times

'Max capacity': Good news for growing school squeezing classes into library

20 Jun 09:00 PM
Bay of Plenty Times

Tauranga couple's 'amazing journey' to parenthood

20 Jun 05:00 PM
Bay of Plenty Times

My father was a community hero - he also sexually abused me

20 Jun 05:00 PM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

'Max capacity': Good news for growing school squeezing classes into library

'Max capacity': Good news for growing school squeezing classes into library

20 Jun 09:00 PM

Maungatapu School in Tauranga will receive three new classrooms for its growing roll.

Tauranga couple's 'amazing journey' to parenthood

Tauranga couple's 'amazing journey' to parenthood

20 Jun 05:00 PM
My father was a community hero - he also sexually abused me

My father was a community hero - he also sexually abused me

20 Jun 05:00 PM
Hannah Cross embraces creativity for Miss Universe NZ finale

Hannah Cross embraces creativity for Miss Universe NZ finale

20 Jun 03:00 AM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP