Highly-paid engineering project manager swindled Revenue out of £60,000 - The Leamington Observer

Highly-paid engineering project manager swindled Revenue out of £60,000

Leamington Editorial 8th May, 2017   0

A HIGHLY-PAID engineering project manager from Kenilworth swindled the Revenue out of more than £60,000 by submitting false claims for repayments and failing to declare other income.

But Tony Klinkovics narrowly avoided being jailed when he appeared at Warwick Crown Court after he had pleaded guilty to ten charges of fraudulently evading income tax.

Instead the 49 year-old of Bromley Close, was sentenced to 16 months in prison suspended for two years.

Judge Andrew Lockhart QC also ordered him to do 250 hours of unpaid work and made him subject to an electronically-monitored curfew from 7pm to 7am for three months.




Klinkovics will also face a confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act at a later date, once an investigation into his finances has been completed.

Prosecutor Simon Hunka said between 2008 and 2016 Klinkovics submitted a number of self-assessment tax returns and claims for refunds on tax paid to HM Revenue and Customs.


Between 2008 and 2013 he worked for the Lear Corporation in Coventry where, as a senior programme manager, he was on a salary of £55,000 before he left.

While he was at Lear, his tax was deducted under the PAYE system – but he regularly claimed rebates based on false claims for mileage in his own car while on company business.

Klinkovics then became self-employed and set up his own engineering-related company Utdc Ltd, earning £15,000 between March and July 2013 which he failed to declare.

He then began working for automotive parts supplier Yazaki Europe Ltd as a project manager at the company’s Coventry premises, and from then until September last year he made a number of further false returns.

Mr Hunka said while at Lear, Klinkovics had made nine false tax returns resulting in him receiving repayments totalling £22,673.

And at Yazaki he made claims for £31,992 worth of repayments – but only received £27,938 of that because HMRC had begun to suspect something was amiss and payments were blocked.

The tax he evaded while he was self-employed took the total loss to the Revenue to a figure of £61,733.

Tom Walkling, defending, said Klinkovics was still in work and ‘will do his best’ to repay HMRC.

Sentencing Klinkovics, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told him: “You have, up until this matter, been a man of good character. But it seems to me that for a period of nearly eight years you filled in fraudulent tax returns.

“These are serious matters. Tax returns are important because it is vital that people such as you in well-paid jobs pay their correct taxes.

“But when you were interviewed you made a full and frank confession, saying you had been in the grip of a gambling addiction.

“You have shown remorse, and you have been attending Gambling Care since the offences came to light.”

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