Retired lawyer Christopher Persson facing suspension over $223k unpaid tax bill

Christopher Persson received 70 notices from the IRD to pay his mounting tax bill over an 11-year period. Photo / 123rf

A lawyer who didn’t pay $223,000 in tax and GST for 11 years is facing suspension - despite having retired last year.

Christopher Persson appeared in the Christchurch District Court last year after pleading guilty to 22 counts of failing to file tax returns since 2010.

Shortly before the hearing took place, he paid the bulk of what was owed but still received a sentence of five months’ home detention.

Now, despite giving up his practising certificate and having since retired, Persson may still be suspended from the roll of barristers and solicitors by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal, which convened today to consider his case.

Persson had a conviction dating back to 2006 of a similar nature before he began ignoring demands from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) to pay his taxes again in 2010.

Over the next 11 years, the IRD sent him 70 letters and notices that he needed to file his returns, all of which he ignored and continued to work as a criminal defence lawyer, collecting funding for legal aid.

He also claimed the wage subsidy as part of the Government’s response to Covid-19.

Counsel for the Law Society’s standards committee prosecuting Persson, Natalie Town, said his conduct was a significant departure from the standards expected of a lawyer.

“This was a failure to pay tax over 10 years with frequent reminders and a history of not having done so in the past,” Town said in her submissions.

“Lawyers are expected to pay tax just like everybody else.”

Town said that despite Persson having now paid the entirety of the sum owed to the IRD, he didn’t do it proactively.

“This was not as voluntary payment. It was only once the prosecution commenced that he complied and repaid what he owed,” she said, noting also that Persson had ample funds in his personal bank account to pay the debt.

Town, on behalf of the Law Society, was seeking a minimum period of suspension of nine months for Persson.

However, Persson’s lawyer Nicholas Till said that other than affecting his client’s pride and his relationship with family and friends, suspension was essentially meaningless.

“Why is suspension being sought given that he’s retired?” he asked the tribunal.

Till argued that suspension simply wasn’t necessary for Persson who was no longer practising and instead asked that the tribunal consider a symbolic suspension where they condemned his conduct as being serious enough to ordinarily warrant that level of punishment without actually imposing it.

Till went on to say that his client’s offending wasn’t planned or premeditated and that he was concentrating on delivering results for his clients, rather than focusing on the administration of his business.

“There was no attempt to evade. There was simply a failure to file returns,” he said.

The tribunal reserved its decision on the penalty and will issue it in writing.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.