Top chef Jonny Schwass gets home detention for failing to pay tax

Jonny Schwass has been in the restaurant trade for decades and has won numerous awards, including being named Cuisine magazine's Restaurant Personality of The Year in 2011. Picture / file photo.

Top Christchurch restaurateur Jonny Schwass will serve six months' home detention for using his employees' tax payments to keep his business afloat.

Schwass has been in the restaurant trade for decades and has won numerous awards, including being named Cuisine magazine's Restaurant Personality of The Year in 2011.

But IRD said that Schwass failed to pay it $265,689 in tax, child support, student loan and KiwiSaver deductions.

He was sentenced to home detention in Christchurch District Court today.

Schwass had used the money to pay creditors in order to keep trading, Inland Revenue spokesman Tony Morris said.

"Mr Schwass was effectively using money that should have gone towards paying for important social services as a free loan to keep his business afloat," Morris said.

"That's completely unacceptable – the money employers deduct from staff wages is held in trust on behalf of the Crown. It's not theirs to use, because it belongs to taxpayers."

Schwass was also ordered to pay $130,000 in reparation, including $13,870 to his former employees' KiwiSaver accounts.