Tax evader Steven Morrow jailed two years, eight months

Steven Morrow has been sentenced in the Hamilton District Court for not paying $350,000 in PAYE tax. Photo / File

Tax evader Steven Morrow has been sentenced to almost three years jail for repeatedly failing to pay Inland Revenue.

Morrow has been sentenced in the Hamilton District Court for not paying $350,000 in PAYE tax.

Morrow's offending through three piling and repiling companies was premeditated and repeated over three years and while Morrow was on bail, Judge Kim Saunders said.

The court heard how Morrow made the PAYE deductions from income paid to his employees but either spent the money or transferred it to his own bank account instead of paying the IRD.

Judge Saunders handed down two years and eight months imprisonment despite defence counsel asking for home detention because of Morrow's debilitating Type 1 diabetes.

Each time one of Morrow's companies was liquidated he immediately began another one and followed the same pattern.

The offending was aggravated by the fact Morrow had previous dishonesty convictions dating back to 2009 and debt with the IRD from the 1990s.

He had previously been bankrupted twice and ha four companies liquidated.