The tax assessor appealed the district court’s verdict to the Court of Appeal and the appeal went through.
Tapani “Tape” Valkonen photographed in Helsinki district court in 2021. Pete Anikari
The Court of Appeal has ordered a bodybuilder My friend “Tape” Valkonen to pay the Tax Administration damages of 52,344 euros with interest in accordance with the Interest Act for gross tax fraud, for which he was originally sentenced in April 2021 at the Helsinki District Court.
In the district court’s verdict, Valkonen was jointly and severally sentenced with his wife Tiina Jylhä-Valkonen to pay the taxman more than 80,000 euros as compensation for the debtor’s gross dishonesty, but Valkonen avoided paying compensation of a good 50,000 euros, because the district court saw the compensations caused by gross tax fraud overlapping with the compensations ordered for the debtor’s gross dishonesty.
The Tax Administration appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeal and the appeal went through. Valkonen did not respond to the Court of Appeal’s appeal to the Tax Administration.
Background
The crime involved Tiina Jylhä-Valkonen paying her husband Tapani Valkonen a salary from the account of her heavily indebted company in the early 2010s.
In 2012, the company had a tax debt of about 160,000 euros, and it made a loss of about 36,500 euros. Despite this, the company paid Valkonen a salary of around 83,000 euros. Even the following year, Valkonen received a salary income of more than 25,000 euros from the company.
The company later went bankrupt. Valkonen, on the other hand, failed to report to the taxman the salary income of 107,940 euros he received from the company and thus avoided taxes of 52,344 euros. It was that amount that now came to be reimbursed.
Valkonen was considered guilty not only of gross dishonesty of the debtor, but also of gross tax fraud and three registration crimes. Valkonen had registered in the trade register as members of the company’s board of directors persons who knew nothing about their appointments.
Tiina Jylhä-Valkonen and Tapani Valkonen admitted the crimes and both of their sentences were reduced in the district court. Pete Anikari
Like his wife, Valkonen had agreed to the confession procedure. His sentence was thus reduced to a suspended sentence of one year and two months. Tiina Jylhä-Valkonen, on the other hand, was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence for gross dishonesty of the debtor.
In addition to the suspended sentences, the couple was jointly and severally sentenced to pay the taxman more than 80,000 euros as compensation for the debtor’s gross dishonesty. Now Valkonen was sentenced to pay more than 50,000 euros more in damages to the taxman.