A Samoan mother and daughter in New Zealand have been sentenced to home detention and community work after evading almost NZ$2 million in GST and PAYE through two labour-hire companies.

Faalaa Fialua and her mother Vaipou Vaoga were sentenced at the Waitakere District Court on 28 April to 12 months' home detention and 40–50 hours of community work.

The offending centred on TK-Kovati Limited, a crop-picking labour supply business set up in 2012. Vaoga initially ran the company before Fialua took over in 2020.

Between 2018 and 2019, Vaoga evaded about $487,000 in GST and $510,000 in PAYE.

In 2020, Fialua closed TK-Kovati and quickly established VAG Son’s Limited to continue the same operations.

She also evaded tax obligations through both companies, including $130,788 in GST and $378,766 in PAYE from TK-Kovati and a further $132,248 in GST and $236,141 in PAYE through VAG Son’s Limited.

In total, Fialua evaded around $878,000, while Vaoga’s offending totalled about $997,000.

Judge Singh said starting points of 45 months’ imprisonment for Vaoga and 42 months for Fialua would have applied, but he reduced the outcome due to guilty pleas, personal circumstances, and hardship factors.

He noted there was no evidence the pair lived a lavish lifestyle from the offending.

He also accepted Fialua’s claim that one company restructure was partly to continue paying workers, but rejected Vaoga’s argument that she did not understand tax obligations, saying she had received repeated warnings from Inland Revenue.