'Greedy' public servant who embezzled $500,000 from the tax office avoids jail

Rishi Khandelwal, 33, will serve his four-year jail term in the community under an intensive corrections order after a magistrate found he had been motivated purely by greed when he used hundreds of fake tax returns to claim $521,719.

Khandelwal worked for Food Standards Australia and New Zealand when he used the identities of international students who had returned to their home countries in an extensive scam carried out between April 2008 and July 2010.

He was found guilty of 302 charges of fraud and was sentenced in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday, nearly six years after his arrest.

Magistrate Peter Dingwall told the court Khandelwal's sole motive for his crimes had been greed, noting he was in a secure and well-paid job at the time.

Luxury items and bags filled with cash were among items police seized when they searched his home.

"It is clear he was motivated by greed and desired to live a lifestyle he aspired to and couldn't achieve on his salary," Mr Dingwall said.

Khandelwal had filled out the tax returns with the students' details, as well as bogus information about where they worked and how much money they had earned.

Money from those refunds was funnelled into a series of bank accounts and withdrawn from ATMs across the city.

The court heard he had kept a handwritten diary in which he systematically recorded details of the taxpayers named in the returns, as well as details of the bank accounts the money had been deposited into.

Details of the accounts were also contained in an Excel spreadsheet named "database09" that was found on Khandelwal's computer.

Police had seized hundreds of bank keycards and documents linked to bank accounts when they searched his home, workplace and gym lockers.

They also discovered paperwork linked to six post office boxes rented by Khandelwal using the identities of people named in the spreadsheet.

Mr Dingwall said the crimes were objectively serious due to the amount of money involved and the length of time the offending took place.

He said general deterrence was paramount in tax fraud matters, given the difficulty in their detection, the cost of the investigations and the impact on the wider public.

The magistrate accepted the real impact on Khandelwal's victims had been minimal given most had been on temporary visas and had left the country.

He believed Khandelwal's young family, as well as his arrest, investigation, job loss, a lengthy and expensive trial and his public sentencing would deter him committing further offences.

Mr Dingwall also took into account significant delays in the case, which he said were partly caused by the large number of documents involved and the complex nature of the offending.

He noted Khandelwal had been on bail since his arrest and took into account the resulting anxiety and restrictions to his freedom.

Under his bail conditions, Khandelwal had not been allowed to leave the ACT and had surrendered his passport, which prevented him visiting his parents or returning to India to take part in important religious rituals for his two children.

The court heard Khandelwal had no prior convictions and now worked as a memberships officer with a large retailer in the ACT to support his family.

He had made positive changes to his life in the past six years and shown insight into the impact of his offending on members of the community, posing a low risk of reoffending.

But Mr Dingwall said the planned, pre-meditated and sophisticated nature of Khandelwal's plot, as well as the breaches of trust involved, meant only a term of imprisonment would be appropriate.

The intensive corrections order will allow Khandelwal to fully serve his sentence outside prison subject to strict conditions.

He was also ordered to perform 400 hours of community service.