A husband and wife have been sentenced to eight months' home detention for not declaring more than $1 million in cash sales at their east Auckland restaurant.
Inland Revenue took the prosecution against Taruun and Shetall Khurana, who ran the Indian Kitchen restaurant in Howick.
In the Manukau District Court, they were sentenced on four charges of tax evasion.
IRD said the pair deliberately tried to cheat the system and ripped off taxpayers to the tune of nearly $450,000.
It said they had not declared a large number of their cash sales, and underreported the real amount of wages they paid staff.
Its group manager of investigations and advice, Patrick Goggin, said it was evident they were not putting everything through the books.
"We identified there was an issue with low gross-profit ratios, and also they returned an extremely low amount of cash."
IRD is now working to recover the money.
