GST claim bogus—Crown

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 14

GST claim bogus—Crown

PA Auckland A company director’s claim for a goods and services tax refund of $221,493 in 1987 was totally bogus and had no documentary evidence to support it, • the District Court at Auckland was told.

Graeme Lyall Cann, aged 47, of no fixed address, is facing a charge of fraudulently using an Inland Revenue Department GST return on May 25 last year for pecuniary advantage. Cann was extradited from Australia in July this year to face the charge. The Crown prosecutor, Mr Kieran Raftery, told the jury Cann filed the GST refund claim on a boat he had bought months before.

The boat’s previous owner, Burns Hubber, said Cann first approached him about buying the boat in 1984 after it had-been blown up in making a film. He offered $20,000, but after inspecting the boat did not complete the purchase.

He then bought the boat for $5OOO in July 1986, Mr Hubber said.

Mr Raftery said Cann claimed he sold the boat to Xcess Plant and Steel Limited, Ltd, of which he was a director, in 1987 for about $2.5 million. He received about $222,000 from the Inland Revenue Department in July 1987. The claim was investigated by the Inland Revenue Department later that year and no

record of the purchase could be found in the company’s books or bank statements.

During the investigation, Cann produced a document stating the boat was sold to the company some time in October, 1986, Mr Raftery said.

“The documentation produced by Mr Cann is just as bogus as the actual GST claim to the Inland Revenue Department and was a bogus claim,” he said.

Mr Raftery said a marine examiner would tell the jury he had examined the boat after the GST claim and would say the boat was not worth anything near the $2.5 million Cann claimed he sold the boat for.

The trial is expected to last at least two days.