A Bay of Plenty businessman has been sentenced to four-and-a-half months home detention on six tax evasion charges after his claim that his business was not covered by New Zealand law failed.

Stephen George Gibson Clark from Opotiki​ was sentenced in the Rotorua District Court on April 21, Inland Revenue (IR) says.

He was found guilty following a five-day jury trial in December, and has been ordered to make $30,000​ of reparations as well as serving his home detention.

The charges related to his company Probitas Systems NZ Limited (PSL), which set up in 2009 and went into liquidation in 2018.

Records on the Companies Office show Clark as the sole director and shareholder of the agricultural and fertiliser business.

IRD says Clark claimed Probitas Systems was vested in a Māori trust and was not subject to New Zealand laws, despite being assured by the department on numerous occasions that it was not exempt from tax law.

All the shares in the company were transferred into Clark's name in 2013, the Companies Register shows.

Before that the company was owned by Ewan Malcolm Campbell​ and Julia Marie Campbell​.

Ewan Campbell was prosecuted for large scale tax evasion in 2015 and sentenced to imprisonment for four years and nine months.

IR says Ewan Campbell was associated with 'a known anti-tax movement” calling itself the Ngā Tikanga Māori Law Society.​

When challenged over Probitas' failure to pay the tax it owed, Clark told IR staff they should contact the Ngā Tikanga Māori Law Society.

'It was after the Campbell case that Clark assumed full control of the company and continued to be largely non-compliant with payment of GST and filing income tax returns,” IR says.

'Despite multiple requests, Clark had failed to supply information in relation to the company's tax affairs as required under Section 17 of the Tax Administration Act,” IR says.

'That meant PSL evaded a minimum of $55,919.58 of income tax and GST.”

The liquidator's second report showed that when the business was put into liquidation, the company owed just under $711,000.

Campbell, from Waihi, was sent to prison in 2016 for not paying nearly $1.5 million in tax.

The charges related to his cattle farming and organic butchery businesses.

Campbell had operated a popular organic butchery and produce shop in Tauranga since 2007, employing up to seven people.

No PAYE had been accounted for in respect of the shop's staff, and no income tax returns for the business had ever been filed, the Tauranga District Court heard.

It was estimated that $1.45m in tax relating to his farming and butchery businesses had been evaded as a result of Campbell's actions.

In 2007, Campbell and his company, Probitas Limited were found guilty of making false and misleading claims about a soil fertiliser a judge called 'snake oil”.

Probitas was fined $200,000 and Campbell $60,000 on June 1, 2007 after a prosecution brought by the Commerce Commission under the Fair Trading Act.

Probitas Limited was put into liquidation in 2009, the Companies Register showed.

- Rob Stock/Stuff.