An Ontario Superior Court handed down a conditional jail sentence of two years, less one day, to a Springwater, Ontario advisor who failed to report his true income or earnings over the course of several years.
According to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Joern Scholz, also known as John Scholz, did not report any of the commissions he received from clients for three years. “By failing to report taxable income totaling $2,149,730 for these years, Scholz evaded a total of $605,355 in federal income tax,” the CRA said in a statement. Scholz also failed to file GST/HST returns for five years, thereby evading the remittance of GST/HST totaling $445,789.
Scholz’ conditional sentence includes 12 months of house arrest, curfew for the remainder of his sentence, up to 200 hours of community service and a fine of $445,789.
“Over the course of several years, Mr. Scholz filed certain income tax forms with the CRA that understated or did not report his true income or earnings for those years. In other years, he did not file any returns,” Justice A.J. Goodman writes in the court’s reasons for decision document. “Further, he failed to remit GST to the government for services rendered. Calculations from witnesses proffered by the Crown suggest that just over $1 million of income tax of GST/HST was due and owing.”
The advisor was found guilty by a jury in an Ontario Superior Court, April 2019, of one count of defrauding the Government of Canada of income tax and GST/HST. Scholz was acquitted of two more serious counts of fraud.
