An appeal by a Tauranga accountant last year sentenced to 10 months home detention and 150 hours community work for perjury has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Bruce Woodward was sentenced in Tauranga District Court on July 4, 2013, after earlier being found guilty on eight charges of filing misleading tax returns, five charges of failing to file returns, and one charge of perjury.

The perjury charge was for making a false statement in an interview conducted as part of an Inland Revenue Department investigation.

Woodward was convicted following a Judge-alone trial.

He appealed conviction on the basis that his statement was capable of having more than one meaning and therefore the prosecution needed to prove the innocent meaning was not the one intended and that the trial judge failed to approach it this way.

Woodward worked as an accountant for many years and had accounting responsibilities for many entities, they included Bilbie Dymock Corp Ltd [later renamed Massey Investments Ltd] in which Woodward obtained an ownership interest, said a report from released yesterday.

He also incorporated Turnstyle Management Ltd to conduct his accounting business.

For many years Woodward failed to file income tax returns, intermittently filed GST returns and usually failed to make payment of the GST amount due.

From 2005 and subsequently, Inland Revenue corresponded with Woodward requesting that he ensure that TML comply with its tax obligations.

In February 2008 Inland Revenue conducted an inquiry under section 19 of the Tax Administration Act 1994 into the Land Equity Group affairs. Woodward was required to attend and did so. He said his own tax affairs were in disarray.

Subsequently Inland Revenue made further attempts to have Woodward pay his taxes. A default assessment was issued in January 2009.

Woodward was told to come to an interview with relevant documentation relating to all the entities he was involved in.

During the interview, Woodward was asked what documentation he had brought with him, to which he said 'I have brought some documents with me, ah, not complete, but um, we can run through those as we get to specific points. The, the, documents I've brought with me relate to my own person ah tax affairs and that of ah Turnstyle Management.

'Those are the only documents I have in my possession.”

The following day, August 12, 2009, Inland Revenue officers searched Woodward's home and workplace. They located a number of documents that fell within the parameters of the sectiom 19 notice, which Woodward had not produced at the interview.

During his trial last year before Judge Thomas Ingram, Woodward said he didn't intent to mislead Inland Revenue, he expected Inland Revenue would already have the relevant documents in their possession and he volunteered a file after the search which Inland Revenue had not found.

In cross-examination, Woodward accepted he knew the answer he gave at the interview about the documents in his possession was not correct.

In considering whether the charge of perjury was proven, the judge rejected Woodward's evidence that he was unsure whether or not he was required to disclose the documents and that he had not intended to mislead anyone.

The judge was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Woodward made an untrue statement, knowing it was untrue, intending it to be acted upon, and intending to mislead Inland Revue's inquiry.

He was therefore convicted on the perjury count.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal as 'this was not a case where two inferences [one innocent and one not] were equally available on the evidence. Rather the evidence supported the Judge's conclusion on the charge”.