Two Companies Fined For Taxation Evasion

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30215, 21 August 1963, Page 16

Two Companies Fined For Taxation Evasion

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Aug. 20. Fines totalling £640 were imposed on a Hutt Valley building and joinery company and its director on income tax evasion charges by Mr J F Keane in the Magistrate’s Court at Lower Hutt today. Stokes Valley Joinery Company, Ltd., pleaded guilty to eight charges of wilfully making false returns of income for the years 1954-1961 inclusive. Gilbert Bamfield Veale, company director, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the offences. The company and Veale were each fined £4O on each charge. The charges were the result of a "Hutt blitz”' by the department, the Court was told.

The company’s income over the period was returned as £28.808, but after an investigation it was assessed at £58.967. As a result there was a deficiency of £11,691 in income tax paid and £B2O in Social Security tax. In a second case, H. E. Keene, Ltd., builders, pleaded guilty to six charges of wilfully making false returns and was fined £25 on each

charge. A company director, Harrie Edwin Keene, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the offences. He also was fined £25 on each charge. Mr Murray said the company’s income for the years 1956-1961 was returned as £17.531, An investigation showed the assessment as £23.987. Short payments in income tax and social security tax totalled £3481. Some tax discrepancies were due to errors in the office of the company’s public accountant, said Mr J. D. Murray, for the department. “The standard of accounting fell lamentably short of what might have been expected.” Besides the fines imposed, the Magistrate also ordered the defendants in each case to pay costs of £1 10s and solicitors’ fees £3 3s on each charge.

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