FORMER Albany tax agent, accountant and financial planner George Thompson has been jailed for six and half years in the Western Australian District Court for tax fraud of about $3.1 million.
He will serve three years, three months in jail before being eligible for parole.
From 2000 to 2003 Mr Thomson altered the tax returns of a number of his clients without their knowledge, claiming false deductions, incomes and tax instalments and then transferring the money to his own bank accounts.
Suspicious funds transfers between those accounts led to a joint investigation of Mr Thompson by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Tax Office.
He fled to Europe in November 2003 but returned, voluntarily, a month later and was arrested by the Federal Police.
District Court judge Jane Crisford said this was a fraud of the highest magnitude.