Tax-dodger being investigated

Press, 9 April 1981, Page 1

Tax-dodger being investigated

PA Wellington The man who appeared on last week’s TVNZ “Newsmakers” programme and told viewers that he was working at two jobs, one under an assumed name, in a bid to beat the tax system is being investigated by the Inland Revenue Department. Mr Graeme Gribble, who appeared as a guest on the programme on Sunday evening, had been

summoned. for an interview with two' senior departmental officers, said the Auckland Central Labour member of Parliament, Mr R. W. Prebble, last evening.. •’.‘Further, he has been told that the two officers will be observing his actions over the next three months and that the Inland Revenue Department will hold a full tax audit of his income for the last seven years,” he said.

Mr Gribble has since offered to pay the tax he owes to the department. “While in no way condoning Mr Gribble’s action, he has done a public service by admitting openly a practice which everyone knows is widespread,” said Mr Prebble, who also appeared on the programme. “It is a head-in-the-sand attitude, to believe that we get tax reform by prosecuting Mr Gribble,” he said. “It is clear that the Inland Revenue Department intends prosecuting Mr

Gribble and by so doing making him a martyre.” Mr Prebble said an examination of the taxpayers prosecuted by the department . last year showed the bulk of prosecutions were for small sums of money from wage and salary earners.