A West Vancouver man convicted of cheating on his taxes must serve 29 months in jail, the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled.
Michael Curt Helmut Scholz, 68, was and two related criminal counts of uttering forged documents. Scholz provided the Canada Revenue Agency with false, backdated documents in order to claim GST and HST rebates he would otherwise not be entitled to on the construction of his $6-million home in the British Properties, the B.C. Supreme Court found.
In 2021, he was Scholz was “motivated by greed” and he “thought he was smart enough to get away with it,” the court ruling states. In justifying the prison term, the trial judge noted that “general deterrence to other like-minded individuals, must be an overriding concern in these tax evasion cases.”
Scholz appealed his conviction, arguing all taxpayers and that the CRA is free to accept or reject those strategies without it becoming a criminal matter. The court of appeal disagreed and upheld the conviction in April 2022.
Scholz also appealed his sentence, arguing he should have been eligible to receive a conditional sentence to be served without jail time.
Scholz asserted the trial judge failed to properly consider the public humiliation he’d endured as a result of coverage of his conviction, which would in itself serve as a deterrent to others who might be tempted to fudge tax documents.
In a ruling that argument. While the courts have recognized that the publicity associated with a trial can be devastating, the trial judge gave the correct weight to public humiliation in crafting his decision, she reasoned.
The trial judge also found the level of planning and sophistication that went into the fraud, along with Scholz’s acumen in commercial law and business, were aggravating factors. But, on appeal, Scholz argued the forged documents were “created in a slap dash fashion” and that his past experience in business and law were not relevant.
Again, the court of appeal disagreed with Scholz’s assertion that the trial judge had erred.
“It was open to the judge to consider Mr. Scholz’s background and experience and to assess his moral culpability bearing those factors in mind. That Mr. Scholz made poor use of his knowledge and skills in committing the offences and got caught does not make it an error for the sentencing judge to consider his expertise as a relevant aggravating factor,” Stromberg-Stein wrote.
Because he was in his 60s at the time of the sentencing in February 2021, Scholz argued he would be at greater risk of contracting serious illness from COVID-19 in prison, although the trial judge did not accept that claim. When he raised COVID-19 on appeal, the judges agreed that the risk of COVID was a collateral consequence of his actions and “the impact of a collateral consequence does not displace the general rule that a sentence must be fit,” Stromberg-Stein wrote.
The three-judge panel agreed with Stromberg-Stein’s view that Scholz’s appeal should be dismissed.
“Mr. Scholz is not suggesting a 29鈥憁onth sentence is demonstrably unfit. Nor could he, as the judge properly considered all the relevant factors and sentencing principles. He properly gave weight to denunciation and deterrence, given Mr. Scholz’s moral blameworthiness. The global sentence of 29 months for a substantial tax fraud is entirely fit in the circumstances,” she wrote.
