R v Goel (No 2)

[2011] NSWDC 144

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v GOEL (No 2) [2011] NSWDC 144
Hearing dates:	9 September 2011.
Decision date:	09 September 2011
Jurisdiction:	Criminal
Before:	Berman SC DCJ
Decision:	Sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 5 years with a non parole period of 2 years.
Catchwords:	CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Dishonestly cause a loss to the Commonwealth - Tax fraud
Legislation Cited:	Commonwealth Criminal Code
Cases Cited:	R v Goel (2011) NSWDC 83 Hili v The Queen; Jones v The Queen [2010] HCA 45
Category:	Sentence
Parties:	The Crown Dinker Goel
Representation:	Mr W Hunt - The Crown Mr A Morris - The Offender Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) Mark Klees and Associates - The offender
File Number(s):	2009/00011996

SENTENCE

1. HIS HONOUR: Dinker Goel is now to be sentenced for forty-one breaches of s 135.1(3) of the Commonwealth Criminal Code . They are forty-one offences of causing tax returns to be filed with the intention of dishonestly causing a loss to the Commonwealth. The maximum penalty for each such offence is five years imprisonment. The offender pleaded guilty to these offences on 4 August 2011.

1. In an earlier judgment I set out the circumstances which led to the offender pleading guilty to each such offence, part-way through his trial, R v Goel (2011) NSWDC 83. As I noted at the time, despite the pleas of guilty, there remained a factual dispute for me to resolve. After the pleas of guilty were entered and the jury was discharged further evidence was called regarding the factual basis on which I would sentence the offender. After hearing that evidence and submissions, at the request of the parties, I indicated the conclusion I had reached in order that remaining aspects of the sentencing submissions could be prepared in the light of that conclusion. I told the parties that I would give reasons for the conclusion I had reached when sentencing Mr Goel. Accordingly, the first part of these remarks on sentence explains the conclusion I reached.

1. As I explained in the earlier judgment there is much that is not in dispute. Briefly, on 19 October 2008 the offender presented himself at the offices of CNR Accounting and Taxation Pty Limited where he met a young taxation consultant by the name of Sharang Sareen. He asked Mr Sareen to prepare and lodge forty-one tax returns. He produced forty-one payment summaries (what used to be called group certificates), together with forty-one handwritten documents, one attached to each payment summary, setting out what purported to be the bank account details of each taxpayer. One of the matters in dispute concerns the circumstances in which Mr Sareen, who prepared the tax returns on some computer software, came to claim deductions for work expenses, although it is common ground that it was the offender who requested that deductions be claimed.

1. Over the next few days the taxation returns were prepared and lodged. As it turns out this was part of an elaborate fraud. Although the taxpayers did exist and the tax file numbers associated with each tax payer were accurate, none of the taxpayers worked for the employers recorded in the payment summaries. Further, the bank account numbers and BSB numbers recorded on the handwritten documents were not accounts held by the nominated taxpayer. The scheme was designed to obtain from the Commonwealth tax refunds which were not legitimately payable. In this regard, the return on the scheme was higher the greater the tax withheld component of each payment summary and the greater the deductions claimed for work expenses.

1. It is the Crown case that the offender well knew that the payment summaries were false, in the sense that the payment summaries recorded income that was not earned by the relevant taxpayer, and more importantly tax which was not withheld by the employer. It is also the Crown case that the offender did what he could to maximise the deductions which would be claimed for work expenses in relation to each taxpayer, knowing full well that because the taxpayer had not earned any of the income recorded on the payment summaries, he or she had not incurred any expenses at all in earning that income.

1. On the other hand it is the case for the offender that whilst he was dishonest in asking Mr Sareen to claim deductions, which he described as "general deductions", for expenses incurred in earning income where he had no evidence to justify a claim that those expenses had been incurred, his dishonesty was limited to that act. It was the offender's evidence confirming what he had earlier told an investigator from the Australian Taxation Office, that he knew it was wrong to claim general deductions of about $300 per taxpayer when he had no information to suggest that those deductions were validly claimed. Although the tax returns each claimed much larger deductions than $300 per taxpayer it is the offender's case that it was Mr Sareen who decided to claim much higher deductions, generally in the order of $2,000 per taxpayer, but in two cases in the order of $4,500.

1. As I told the parties on 9 August 2011 I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the Crown case as to the extent of the offender's dishonesty should be accepted. This means that the offender was knowingly part of a scheme to defraud more than $180,000 from the Commonwealth. I reject as not being a reasonable possibility, the proposition that the offender believed the payment summaries to be genuine.

1. As might be imagined there are circumstances in the evidence which point both ways. Some factors tend to suggest that Mr Goel was a mere patsy or dupe who was used as an innocent agent by others. But the preponderance of evidence, which I repeat has satisfied me beyond reasonable doubt, establishes that the offender well knew that the taxpayers recorded on each of forty-one payment summaries were not in any way involved in the matter.

1. The offender says he was given the forty-one payment summaries and attached handwritten notes by a man with the name Kieran in Melbourne about a week before he went to see Mr Sareen. The evidence established that the offender, who worked for a company called Accounting First Financial Services Pty Limited (AFFS), would, as part of his regular duties, go to Melbourne, get a hotel room and see clients there. The offender said Kieran came to see him one day and indeed the offender prepared Kieran's 2008 tax return. The offender also said Kieran gave him the forty-one payment summaries and handwritten attachments containing bank account details of the taxpayers. He said that after having been rebuffed by his employer when he suggested that AFFS could do the work of lodging the tax returns he went to Mr Sareen's company. His evidence was that he spoke to Mr Sareen for only a very short time and did nothing much more than hand over the relevant documents and tell Mr Sareen to claim general deductions.

1. Mr Sareen's evidence was that the meeting lasted some two hours and initially he was inputting relevant data into computer software. He said he did this for about thirty-five or thirty-six taxpayers but then when he was running out of time and his next client was waiting to see him, he told the offender he would finish off the remaining five or six returns on a later occasion. The difference between the offender's evidence as to how long the meeting took and Mr Sareen's evidence as to how long the meeting took is explained by their different evidence as to how the subject of deductions was treated. As I have already said on a number of occasions it was the offender's evidence that he told Mr Sareen to claim general deductions for around $300 per taxpayer, but it was Mr Sareen's evidence that for the first thirty-five or thirty-six tax returns the offender supplied him with details regarding their deductions to be claimed. Mr Sareen said that when he ran out of time the offender told him to claim around $2,000 on each of the remaining tax returns. Mr Sareen said that therefore for the last five or six returns he claimed miscellaneous expenditure of around $2,000.

1. There is some significant support for Mr Sareen's evidence when the tax returns themselves are examined. There are a number where deductions are claimed for specific categories of deductions. There are a number where miscellaneous deductions are claimed for amounts much less or more than $2,000 and there are a number where miscellaneous deductions of around $2,000 are claimed. This strongly supports what Mr Sareen said was the nature of the conversation he had with the offender regarding deductions. It is entirely contrary to how Mr Sareen would have behaved if the offender's evidence was true. The offender said he asked Mr Sareen to treat deductions for all tax returns in the same manner. But Mr Sareen clearly treated many of them differently, two claiming deductions in the order of $4,500, four claiming deductions of less than $1,000, many claiming deductions for specific matters such as the cost of managing tax affairs, uniforms, travel, et cetera, and many claiming only miscellaneous expenses of around $2,000, which would include the five or six returns prepared after the offender left. There is no reason that Mr Sareen would go to such elaborate lengths to differentiate the various tax returns if he had been truly asked only to claim "general deductions", especially general deductions of around $300.

1. That Mr Sareen gave this evidence is an important aspect in assessing his credibility, beyond the circumstance of the objective evidence supports what he says. Clearly Mr Sareen was admitting to conduct as regards the five or six tax returns which was improper. He was in effect making things up as regards the deductions. As such this was an admission against his interests, a factor which is usually thought to be useful in assessing the reliability of what a person says, and further there was no reason for him to make that admission if it were not true. On the offender's version of what occurred at their meeting there is no reason at all for Mr Sareen to say one thing regarding the first thirty-five or thirty-six tax returns, and a different thing regarding the remainder. Indeed, on the offender's version, Mr Sareen was lying, or at the very least mistaken, when he said the offender provided the details of the deductions for the bulk of the tax returns. If that were the case then there is no explanation as to why Mr Sareen would not lie regarding all of the forty-one tax returns. The fact that he said different things about, on the one hand the first thirty-five or thirty-six tax returns, and on the other hand the remaining five or six returns is strongly supportive of the Crown's case that the details regarding the deductions for most of the tax returns, and the level of deductions for the remaining tax returns came from the offender.

1. Of course, Mr Morris submitted that it was not only Mr Sareen who was making an admission against his interests. He said that his client was similarly making admissions against interest when he admitted that he asked for general deductions to be claimed. However, the nature of the way in which the offender told Mr Anderson from the ATO what he had done very much had the flavour of the offender admitting to something he thought, at least when he made the admission, was relatively benign. And in any case by saying that he'd asked for general deductions to be claimed he was minimising, he hoped, the likelihood that he would have been found to be more deeply involved.

1. The issue of deductions is also important for another reason, because it showed that the offender consistently acted as if the taxpayers' names on the payment summaries had nothing to do with the matters recorded there. Even on the offender's version he acted as if there were no real taxpayers. Even on his version, when the question of deductions came up, the offender made no enquiry with Kieran to ensure the taxpayers were getting the refunds they were entitled to. Although the offender's evidence was that he asked Mr Sareen to claim deductions of around $300, he accepted, of course, that if a taxpayer had incurred expenses higher than that and had the appropriate receipts, then the taxpayer was entitled to get a larger refund - yet he made no enquiry as to whether that was the case. Had the offender genuinely believed that the payment summaries were legitimate, it is inconceivable that he would not have at some stage checked to see whether the taxpayers were entitled to a greater deduction than he was assuming. To repeat for emphasis - when the offender was told by Sareen that there was no information regarding deductions and the offender told him to claim the general deductions (of course this is what the offender says) the offender accepts it was possible that the taxpayers had higher deductions than that and that in fact they could have ended up paying more tax than they were supposed to.

1. This strange behaviour, if what the offender said is true, is explained on the basis that the offender well knew that it was not possible to find out from the taxpayers what their deductions should actually be. He knew that there were no taxpayers to approach.

1. Mr Morris suggested that maybe the offender was blinded by the promise of a quick dollar and so was concerned more with making money for himself than the taxpayers. But if that is the case, it does not explain why the offender claimed any deductions at all. He was going to be paid by Kieran no matter what the level of deductions claimed. So Mr Morris' purported explanation is, upon analysis, not a valid explanation at all.

1. It is thus quite simple to reject beyond reasonable doubt the offender's claim that his conversation with Mr Sareen regarding deductions was limited to the offender asking him to claim general deductions of around $300. This makes it much easier to find beyond reasonable doubt that he asked for Mr Sareen to claim deductions of a much higher level and of course it is very easy to conclude that the reason he did this was, as I explained earlier, that this maximised the return from the criminal scheme.

1. As the Crown Prosecutor submitted, the evidence suggesting that the offender was concerned to get the deductions at such a high level meant that he was "in on it."

1. There are other matters strongly supportive of Mr Sareen's evidence where it conflicts with the offender's. It was immediately obvious to Mr Sareen that the ratio of tax purportedly withheld to income purportedly earned, was high. Again, this was part of the workings of the criminal enterprise, to maximise the return from it. Mr Sareen gave evidence that he asked the offender about this and the offender responded that he, as payroll manager, had done that deliberately to maximise the refund that each taxpayer would receive each year. An officer from the ATO gave evidence that he had calculated the amount by which the tax withheld was larger than it should have been for a number of the returns. In each case it was a significant discrepancy, that being confirmed by Mr Sareen's evidence that he noticed it very quickly. But the offender denied that he noticed the discrepancy. I find that difficult to believe, given the size of the variation from what would be expected and the offender's evidence as regards his experience with personal tax returns.

1. It was the offender's evidence that nothing in the nature of his transactions with Kieran suggested that it was other than genuine. But there are a number of factors which should have aroused the offender's suspicion. Kieran paid him in cash and did not supply an authorisation from any of the forty-one taxpayers. The offender said that one of the things which led him to believe that Kieran was aboveboard was that the bank account details were different for each of the forty-one taxpayers, yet he maintained that not once in the period between when he received the documents from Kieran and when he handed them to Mr Sareen, did he check that that was the case - an exercise which took him all of two minutes when he performed it at the Crown's request in the witness box.

1. It is also important to consider the motivations of the various players in this matter, in particular Mr Sareen and the offender. There was no motive for Mr Sareen to do with the offender said he did; that is to claim deductions at a much higher level than Mr Goel asked him to. That made no difference to the payment Mr Sareen received, but it did make a very big difference to the amount that would be realised from this fraudulent operation. The offender had a real motive to claim higher deductions if he was involved in the fraud, and as I have explained above, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that it was he who was responsible for the high level of deductions claimed.

1. Let me move away now from the offender's interaction with Mr Sareen. A search was conducted of the AFFS offices. That search included the company's computers. In the offender's directory on that computer was discovered a list of taxpayers under the heading, "Melbourne clients, not lodged, 2007." It appears to have been created from other records held by AFFS.

1. Every one of the names on the forty-one payment summaries appears on that list. That is a remarkable coincidence, given the circumstances in which the offender says the payment summaries were given to him by a man unconnected with AFFS in a hotel room in Melbourne.

1. Each of the forty-one taxpayers appears to have previously had a tax return filed by a company which was a predecessor to AFFS, which would explain why their records would be held on the AFFS computer. At the very least the evidence would suggest that the offender had access to information which enabled him to either prepare the payment summaries or to give information to someone else to prepare those payment summaries. As I have said, that this information from the records of AFFS, somehow found its way into the hands of Kieran in Melbourne, to be given to the offender who worked for AFFS - is something of a remarkable coincidence.

1. A major factor relied on by Mr Morris in this regard concerned an enquiry made on the ATO tax portal regarding one of the forty-one taxpayers. The evidence would suggest that the tax portal had been used by a person within AFFS to make an enquiry about the status of one of the forty-one tax returns. The evidence would also suggest that within AFFS there were only three people who could themselves use the portal, and the offender was not one of those. Mr Morris' submission was that this demonstrated that someone within AFFS other than his client was involved in this criminal scheme and this would explain the link between the forty-one names found in the offender's directory on the company computer, and the names appearing in the payment summaries.

1. However I accept the Crown submission as regards this circumstance. It is clear that the offender could not have been involved in all aspects of the criminal scheme. For example some of the bank accounts were set up before the offender arrived in Australia. And the Crown submission is that it may be that the offender had a co-offender in the ranks of AFFS. Or it may be that whoever made the enquiry through the tax portal did so at the offender's request. It would not be unusual for a tax consultant such as the offender to have to have enquiries made through the tax portal from time to time and this would necessitate the offender approaching one of the three people who was able to access the portal, and so that person may simply have done so at the offender's request, without knowing anything about the fraudulent scheme which was underway. Alternatively said the Crown, it may be that the offender used a person's ID and password without their knowledge.

1. The Crown's submission is there are so many possibilities not inconsistent with the offender's guilt. Of course that is not to cast aside the evidence regarding the access through the tax portal at all. It is important evidence which I have taken into account. There is no evidence that the offender asked anyone to access the tax portal on his behalf, nor is there any evidence that any of the persons authorised to access the tax portal within AFFS allowed their log in details to be used by the offender. But this is just one circumstance which has to be considered in the context of all the evidence that I have heard.

1. Certainly it tends to point in the direction the offender wants me to go in, but it is not a matter of such weight as to overcome the other evidence which is very highly probative of the Crown case as regards the extent of the offender's dishonesty.

1. Another matter relied on by Mr Morris is the offender's use of his correct name, payment through a credit card with his name on it and use of a telephone registered in his correct name. Mr Morris says that by doing these things he was clearly allowing himself to be identified, something which would not occur if he knew that the payment summaries were false. On the other hand in many cases involving the criminal law, it is only when the offenders make a mistake that they can be caught. More relevantly to the present case, it is entirely possible that the offender's use of his genuine credit card was related to the fact that it has the letters CPA on it. Although there is some dispute as to whether the offender actually told Mr Sareen that he was a certified public accountant, it was Mr Sareen's evidence that his belief that the offender was a certified public accountant was a factor in him accepting the legitimacy of the work he was asked to do. It would not be at all surprising if the offender had determined to use his CPA credit card as a means of overcoming any concerns that Mr Sareen might have.

1. It may also be that the offender thought the tax returns would be processed without question. Perhaps he believed, maybe because someone told him, that no genuine returns would be filed by any of the tax payers. If he believed that the scheme would work, then there was no need for him to go to the effort of disguising his appearance and if his efforts at disguise came unstuck, that may of itself have raised suspicions which would cause the scheme to unravel. The fact that the offender allowed himself to be identified is a matter which works in his favour. But again, it is not something which is necessarily inconsistent with his guilt.

1. Much of the resolution of the factual dispute involved a consideration of the credibility of the offender on the one hand and Mr Sareen on the other. Where their evidence conflicts I have no hesitation in accepting Mr Sareen's evidence beyond reasonable doubt. The offender had significant problems with his credibility. Firstly to state the obvious, he has pleaded guilty to forty-one counts of dishonesty. Secondly he admitted lying to Mr Sareen about the nature of his relationship with the tax payers. Thirdly when spoken to by Mr Anderson, he did not tell him the name of the person in Melbourne who had given him the payment summaries, instead telling Mr Anderson that he did not know it, which even on Mr Goel's evidence was untrue. Fourthly, the offender's performance in cross-examination was far less than impressive. On many occasions, he attempted to explain away otherwise incriminating circumstances in a way which was most unimpressive. For example, he could not explain in any rational way why he had lied to Mr Sareen about his relationship with the forty-one tax payers, and it was only after some time that he came up with an explanation as to why he did not provide Kieran with any form of invoice or receipt for the money which Kieran had paid him.

1. In assessing the credibility of the offender and Mr Sareen of course, I bear in mind also that Mr Sareen was also acting in a way which was, at least to my mind, dishonest as regards the deductions claimed for the tax payers when Mr Goel did not give him specific information. Indeed the flavour of his evidence was that he would not put down a round figure of say two hundred dollars, because that might arouse suspicion.

1. So whilst there is evidence tending to suggest that Mr Goel was indeed a patsy and unaware that at the time he handed over the forty-one payment summaries he was participating in a criminal scheme to defraud the Commonwealth of more than one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, there is much evidence to the contrary.

1. As I have explained it above, having considered all the evidence, I have reached the conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that the offender was knowingly part of a scheme to defraud approximately one hundred and eighty thousand dollars from the Commonwealth.

1. This is of course a very serious series of offences. The system of personal taxation that is operated in Australia relies to a large extent on self assessment. That is, the ATO largely accepts what tax payers say in their tax returns. To have an officer from the ATO check every tax return file would be both expensive and also time consuming. Tax payers entitled to legitimate tax refunds would find that they had to wait significantly longer than they presently do to receive money owing to them from the Commonwealth. Indeed a fraud on the taxation is in a real sense a fraud on all other law abiding tax payers.

1. The offender is now thirty-two years of age. He lives with his wife and daughter in shared accommodation. He was born and raised in India. He had a stable and what he described as sheltered upbringing where all his needs were met. He has two older brothers who live overseas and he has frequent telephone contact with them and with his parents. He has told them about his offence. They are, not surprisingly disappointed by his behaviour, but nevertheless provide him with ongoing emotional support.

1. Mr Goel is also fortunate to have a strong and loving relationship with his wife, who he said has been by his side since their union. He is a permanent resident in Australia. He applied for citizenship but that was declined due to his current offence.

1. He was educated to a tertiary level in India and received a degree in commerce. One of his brothers worked in an accounting practice and Mr Goel worked for him for about eighteen months before coming to Australia. Once he arrived in Australia, the offender started working in the marketing industry where he worked for twelve months before getting his employment at AFFS. Of course since his arrest, things have gone dramatically downhill. His employment was terminated and he has been unable to get work of a similar standard. Most recently, he has been working in a convenience store for a friend of his who provided a reference to the Court.

1. One of the matters that was exercising Mr Goel's mind at the very time he was committing these offences concerned the impending birth of his first child, she is now three years of age. Mr Morris relied on the circumstances surrounding Mr Goel's wife and daughter, although frankly conceded that he could not say that those circumstances were exceptional. Mr Goel's wife speaks some English but it is not her first language. She is now able to work as a currency exchange officer whilst their child is in day care. Of course once Mr Goel receives a custodial sentence, as Mr Morris all but conceded was inevitable, his wife and child will be deprived of his comfort and support. Mr Goel gave evidence that he might suggest that his wife return to India where she will have family support available to her.

1. Whatever precisely occurs, Mr Goel will do his time in custody harder than would otherwise be the case. If his wife and daughter remain in Australia, he will do his time knowing that he has deprived them of a significant part of the support from which they would benefit at this time. If they go back to India, then he will be deprived of their visits for the period of his custody.

1. I spoke before about matters going dramatically downhill since the offender's arrest. Mr Morris tendered a psychiatric report from Dr Raymond Tint Way. That reveals significant depression and indeed suicidal ideation associated with stress of the current proceedings and Mr Goel's fear of a custodial sentence. Unfortunately I have to say such circumstances are very common, especially those of otherwise good character facing a custodial sentence for the first time. Despite their relatively common occurrence, I will take them into account in assessing the sentence to impose on Mr Goel. He is not a hardened criminal used to mixing with the sort of characters he will find in custody.

1. As I have mentioned the offender is of otherwise good character. References tendered on his behalf speak highly of him and refer to acts of kindness performed by him to his friends.

1. Mr Goel pleaded guilty part way through his jury trial. His willingness to facilitate the course of justice by that plea of guilty is limited indeed. The history of this matter, as was explained to me, involved other Court proceedings and even if I ignore those, I do note that Mr Goel's plea of guilty was entered many days after the trial had commenced and was followed by a disputed facts hearing which, as I have just indicated, was resolved against the offender. Given the extremely limited indication of a willingness to facilitate the course of justice, I do not propose to specify a particular discount that I have allowed for it.

1. One of the factors that Mr Morris relies on is that there is no evidence that the proceeds of the tax refunds made their way to the offender. Although Mr Morris concedes that the offence was clearly committed for financial gain, he says that the only evidence of financial gain is the payment that the offender received for doing what he did. On the other hand, it has to be noted that if the offender had received proceeds of the tax refunds or any part of them, he would have been guilty of a more serious offence, one which carried double the maximum penalty. It is not a matter of mitigation in the offender's case that a more serious offence was not committed.

1. I should have said before that the Crown asked me to discount the benefit that the offender can obtain from his good character. I do not propose to do that. His good character was a very small part of his ability to commit these offences and I see no good reason why the offender should not be fully entitled to have me consider his otherwise good character in determining the appropriate sentence.

1. Mr Morris relied on what he said was assistance given by the offender in his interviews with officers from the ATO. I find that there was no relevant assistance given.

1. Mr Morris relied on comparative cases but freely admitted that the assistance they could provide was limited. In particular, some of them involved other and various forms of offending and the maximum penalty for the taxation fraud matters referred to in those other cases was not the same as the maximum penalty faced by this offender.

1. It is important that when I look at those as comparative cases I identify the precise offence that the offender is to be sentenced for as I did at the outset of these remarks.

1. Mr Morris made a submission that I would impose concurrent sentences saying that these offences were all committed as the one course of conduct. Indeed there were forty-one offences because in the one act the offender had handed over details of forty-one separate tax payers. However, it would be wrong to think that the offender should receive the same punishment as if he had committed only one offence, which was, in effect, what Mr Morris was submitting.

1. It is clear that there needs to be some accumulation of sentence. The offender should not receive a sentence appropriate to an offender who had made an approach to Mr Sareen regarding a single tax payer, claiming deductions of around four, five or six thousand dollars. The offender's overall misconduct is much, much more serious than that. There needs to be some level of accumulation and in doing so I have divided the offences up into what I freely admit is an arbitrary way. I have grouped them into four groups and will make the sentences in each group concurrent with each other but the sentences in other groups partially accumulative.

1. One of the interesting issues that has arisen since the High Court decision of Hili v The Queen; Jones v The Queen [2010] HCA 45 concerns the ratio of non-parole period to head sentence which is appropriate in the present case. The attitude by the Crown on the sentence proceedings here has obviated the need for me to go into great detail in explaining why I have chosen a non-parole period which is forty per cent of the overall head sentence. If it were necessary for me to explain what I have done in detail I would refer to the matters that I referred to in submissions from the Crown relating to the absence of any norm for commonwealth offenders following Hili and Jones and the absence of any statutory ratio as would apply in the case of State offences. Mr Crown quite properly conceded that a ratio of non-parole period to head sentence of around forty per cent would be appropriate in the circumstances of this particular case (I gather he was saying that there may be other cases where that ratio would not be appropriate so we can leave for a future time an examination of the effect of Hili and Jones on what ratio of non-parole period to head sentence will be imposed in those other cases).

1. I impose sentence as follows: for counts one to ten on the indictment, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for a period of two years, to date from 9 September 2011.

1. For counts eleven to twenty on the indictment, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for a period of two years, to date from 9 September 2012.

1. For counts twenty-one to thirty on the indictment, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for two years, to date from 9 September 2013.

1. And for counts thirty-one to forty-one on the indictment, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for two years, to date from 9 September 2014.

1. Thus the overall head sentence is one of five years. The non-parole period I set is two years, to date from 9 September 2011, which will mean that the offender is eligible to be released to parole on 8 September 2013.

1. Mr Goel, I need to explain to you what I have done. I have sentenced you to imprisonment. Your imprisonment will start today. You will serve at least two years in gaol. That means that you will be eligible to be released to parole on 8 September 2013. If you are released to parole, then you will be serving your sentence in the community for a further three years and any misbehaviour by you could see your parole revoked and you returned to custody. Do you understand what I have done Mr Goel? Right, thank you.

1. Mr Crown, I consider it appropriate, it is a matter for you and the ATO, that at least investigations be made into Mr Sareen's culpability for any offences he may have committed, as regards to his decision to claim deductions on the tax returns but that is a matter for you and the ATO to decide.

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Decision last updated: 29 September 2011