Tax not paid: fined $450

Press, 31 August 1977, Page 4

Tax not paid: fined $450

A man who has still not fully paid his tax for the last three years was yesterday convicted and fined a total of $450 by Mr K. M. Frampton. S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court for not filing his tax returns for those years. Walter Vernon Austin should have paid tax of $10,187 from 1974 to 1976, and when investigated by the Inland Revenue Department he asked that the charges be withdrawn as his wife was sick.

From his jobs with the Fletcher Timber Company and as a vendor with “The Press.” he earned between $11,345 and $14,874 for the

three years he failed to file tax returns. P.A.Y.E. tax was deducted from his earnings at Fletchers. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr D. Saunders) said that the breaches had been carried out in a blatant manner, and that the Court should take a serious view of the breaches and impose a deterrent penalty. The Magistrate fined Austin $l5O (the maximum fine is $200) on each charge.

Under penal tax regulations decided by the District Commissioner of Inland Revenue, tax defaulters may have to pay up to three times the amount of tax they have evaded.