Unpaid work for fishing tax fraudster

A FISHERMAN who admitted fraudulently evading more than £26,000 of tax has been ordered to carry out more than 100 hours of unpaid work.

George Gen, who lives on the Ardent fishing boat at Holmsgarth, Lerwick, previously admitted committing the offence between April 2007 and April 2013 at an address in the town’s Fort Road and elsewhere.

He failed to submit income tax self-assessment forms relating to £169,000 of income for his work as a fisherman – on which he should have paid £26,419 in tax to HMRC.

The 51 year old was given four months to put a repayment plan in place before being sentenced.

At Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday, defence agent Tommy Allan said that the self-employed fisherman has been regularly paying back money since 1 April – a total of at least £6,000 so far.

However Allan suggested that HMRC “are not interested in collecting it”, with Gen now “building up considerable credit”.

Sheriff Philip Mann said that while benefit fraud would merit a jail term, this case was “differential” and did not mean a custodial sentence was inevitable.

He ultimately gave Gen 120 hours of unpaid work to complete within one year.

The sheriff added that the fisherman must report to the social work department whenever he returns to Shetland from a fishing trip in order to carry out the sentence.