Former Agriculture Canada research scientist Yantai Gan, whose charges of fraud and breach of trust were recently stayed, has pleaded guilty to tax evasion.
Gan, now living in Kelowna, B.C. pleaded guilty in provincial court in Swift Current, Sask., to one count of wilfully evading tax payment by understating his personal taxable income from 2012 to 2017, according to Canada Revenue Agency.
He was fined $86,362.
Gan did not report $300,971 in earnings he received from contracts with a Chinese university, Gansu Agricultural University, and American pasta producer Barilla during his tenure with Agriculture Canada. He was not permitted to enter into outside contracts, and those were the subject of the stayed charges.
CRA said Gan also didn’t report rental income on a Kelowna property in 2016-17 worth $12,127.
The agency said it obtained all case-specific information from court records.
Gan was arrested in November 2019 after a two-year investigation by the RCMP. The charges were stayed in January when the judge ruled the case had taken too long to come to trial.
