Builders fined for non-payment

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33938, 3 September 1975, Page 9

Builders fined for non-payment

(from Our Own Reporter) NELSON. A firm of builders operating in Greymouth and Nelson, and close to liquidation, was convicted and fined $2OO for failing to pay superannuation deductions for April to the Inland Revenue Department, when it appeared in the Nelson Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Mr K. H. J. Headifen S.M., also fined the firm, Home Developers (Greymouth) Ltd, $5O on each of three charges of failing to pay to the Inland Revenue Department P.A.Y.E. deductions for March, April and between November last year, and February this year. With court costs and solicitors’ fees the company will have to pay $420. Answering a question from the Magistrate, counsel for the Department (Mr J. R. Aubin) said that he understood the company was almost insolvent, and he believed the company was almost in liquidation. The Department was one of a great number of creditors, and he did not think many would get paid. The Department had brought the prosecutions to highlight the serious nature of the offences, Mr Aubin said.

Earlier, Mr R. H. Bingham the district accountant I for the Department, said

that the defendant company had made P.A.Y.E. tax deductions for the period between November, 1974 and February, 1975, of $12,481 but had not paid this sum into the Department. The deduction for March amounted to $2985, and for April, $2571, and these deductions had not been paid in.

Provisions of the Superannuation Act came into force on April 1, Mr Bingham said, and deductions in respect of • the company, amounting to $134, were due for payment the next month. They were not paid, he said. The Department had taken civil proceeding in respect of the deductions, and payment in part had been made. The maximum penalty for an offence of this nature against the Superannuation Act was $2OOO, Mr Bingham said.