ALLEGED TAX EVASION

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29263, 22 July 1960, Page 20

ALLEGED TAX EVASION

Auckland Case Adjourned (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND. July 21. The method of assessing incomes by accretion of assets, by the Department of Inland Revenue in a prosecution brought before the Auckland Magistrate’s Court, had a limited value, said Mr N. Wilson, Q.C., today. He said it was not enough for the prosecution to prove, in a prosecution for wilfully making false returns of income, that a general deficiency in tax paid existed. Arthur Reginald Phillips, managing director of New Zealand Distributors, Ltd., had pleaded not guilty before Mr W. J. Meade, S.M., to wilfully making five false returns of income. Mr Wilson, for Phillips, referred to the defendant’s income for one year which, on the commissioner’s assessment, was minus £4238 17s sd—a year in which Phillips returned an income of £3009 18s. In another year the defendant returned an income of £2509 15s 7d, and the commissioner assessed it at £9017 5s 7d. In another case cited by Mr Wilson, the commissioner assessed the defendant’s income at “£6OO less than the defendant undoubtedly earned.” The Magistrate adjourned the hearing of all five charges to August 4.