FALSE RETURNS OF INCOME

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27472, 5 October 1954, Page 7

FALSE RETURNS OF INCOME

DAIRY FARMER FINED £515 (New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, October 4.' Said to have systematically understated his income to the extent of £5395 over 10 -years, a Macandrew Bay dairy farmer, Ernest Edward Valpy Jury, aged 57, was today fined £515 by Mr J. D. Willis, S.M., for wilfully making false returns of income. The 10 charges against Jury covered the period from March 31, 1944, to March 31, 1953. Jury pleaded guilty. Mr W. F. Thomson, for the Inland Revenue Department, said that Jury should have paid in this period £782, plus £4ll for social security charges. He had not kept a complete record of his stock, and the report of the inspector who interviewed him, said that he had not been co-operative. He had left the preparation of his returns to his solicitor.

Mr G. T. Baylee, for the defendant, said that since 1941 Jury had regularly employed a solicitor, and it appeared that the solicitor or his clerk had made the returns from Jury’s information. However; it appeared that no attempt had been made to crossexamine Jury as to his assets and income and to make the position clear as to what his income actually was. The Magistrate said Jury had blatantly attempted to evade his responsibilities. In 1948 he had declared his income as almost £2OO, and the reassessment had put the figure at £9OO. In 1951 he had declared £175, and the reassessment was more than £lOOO. “This would have gone on for ever,” he added.