The second partner of a Hamilton law firm has admitted evading paying income tax for 10 years.
Wayne John Revell, 59, was a former partner in law firm Tanner Fitzgerald, along with 80-year-old John Campion who earlier this year admitted avoiding paying tax for 13 years.
Revell appeared briefly in the Hamilton District Court today when, through his lawyer Philip Morgan QC, pled guilty to one representative charge of evading the payment of his personal income tax between March 31, 2008 and March 31, 2017.
Revell was due to go to trial over the offending after first being charged by the Inland Revenue Department in January 2018.
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Today, prior to proceedings kicking off, he reversed his plea and was convicted and remanded at large for sentencing in February next year.
IRD prosecutor Daniel Phillips indicated to the judge that the Department was making further inquiries about Revell prior to sentencing.
Revell, who was admitted to the bar in 2003, is also the sole director and shareholder of Revell Law Ltd, which he set up in 2017 and remains active, according to the Companies Office.
He was practising and defended a client - who was put into liquidation by the IRD - as recently as February this year.
Revell also specialised in debt collection.
Tanner Fitzgerald has since been wound up, but Revell remains a director and shareholder of Tanner Fitzgerald Trustees Ltd which features other Waikato lawyers John O'Shea and Helen Monckton, who was suspended by the NZ Law Society for one month in 2014 for negligence.
Meanwhile, Campion's fraud totalled $260,000.
He admitted a representative charge of evading income tax in the Hamilton District Court in February.
The 80-year-old, who has been a practising lawyer since 1965, stopped paying his income tax in 2005.
Despite being issued 23 reminder notices by the Inland Revenue Department he still never paid.
It's not the first time Campion has got in trouble for not paying his bills.
His failure to refund a client more than $15,000 in 2012 was labelled "ostrich-like" by the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal.
He appealed against the finding but it was turned down and four years later $2171 was still outstanding.
And in October, he was suspended from practising for two years - despite no longer holding a practising certificate.
He was found guilty of "unsatisfactory conduct" in relation to a large number of "professional failures" relating to the administration of estates and trusts.
The Tribunal found his offending to be at the high end of misconduct primarily due to his extensive disciplinary history, dating back to 2012.