Nationwide fined

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 4

Nationwide fined

PA Hamilton A transport company in trouble is not entitled to ■improve its liquidity by deferring road-user charges, says a decision given in the Magistrate’s Court at Hamilton. Nationwide Transport, Ltd, appeared on five charges relating to the Road User Charges Act. Mr J. E. Millar, S.M., fined the company a total of $950. The Court was told the company had failed to pay road-user charges totalling $925. Nationwide Transport, a subsidiary of Haulaways Corporation, had earlier pleaded not' guilty to three charges of using a vehicle beyond the distance shown on its distance licence, and two charges of failing to display a distance licence. In a written declaration, the Magistrate said that in respect of the five charges he should ignore an alleged arrangement between the Commissioner of Works on behalf of rhe Crown and the holding company of the group to which the defendant belonged. “It seems to me that if I were to do otherwise I

shcmld, in fact, be subscribing to the proposition that a transport operator . . if short of cash, is entitled to improve its liquidity position by deferring payment of road-user charges," said the Magistrate. ‘‘That proposition appears to me to be completely untenable, particularly when, by avoiding road-user charges, the dishonest operator gains a cost advantage on its competitors, if only temporarily." The Magistrate said he appreciated the importance of points made by Mr Trapski, S.M.. in two decisions by him at Taupe in similar cases, and would not wish to be thought to differ from the humanitarian line taken by him. But an offender's means were only one of many factors to be taken into account. One matter which should have been drawn to Mr Trapski’s attention was the validity of the document purporting to be a guarantee. Mr Millar said the document was “in a very unsatisfactory form." The receiver ai the

Nationwide company was uncertain of its validity and legal' effect he said. Under the Road User Charges Act there was no debt to the Crown as there was under the for- ! mer system where evaded taxes were payable at penal rates, apart from any penalty imposed by the Court. In the present system no debt arose from non-payment of road user charges unless a court imposed a fine. The Magistrate warned the company that if evasions of the road-user charges continued he might take a “much severer view of the matter.”