P.A.Y.E. default case adjourned

Press, 18 May 1989, Page 19

P.A.Y.E. default case adjourned

A businessman who used more than $30,000 P.A.Y.E. tax deducted from his employees’ wages to pay his bills was having his business “subsidised by the taxpayer,” Judge Erber said in the District Court. Anthone Bernard Grofski admitted spending the P.A.Y.E. deductions instead of paying them to the Inland Revenue Department, and refusing to produce a wage book when asked by a department officer. Mr Michael Lennard,

for the Inland Revenue Department, said that Grofski, a sole trader in the business of landscape design and contracting, failed to pay the department a total of $30,748.70 of P.A.Y.E. tax deducted from his employees between December, 1987, and December 1988. Grofski had told a department officer that he had not made the payments because the money was used to pay telephone, power, and other accounts, he said.

Penalty and penal tax

had been imposed, bringing the total that Grofski owed to the department for the defaulted payment to $49,206.14, Mr Lennard said.

Mr Scott Fairclough, counsel for Grofski, said that his business had experienced severe cash flow problems, and Grofski was barely able to meet his employees’ net wages.

The Judge adjourned the case until May 29 so that probation and reparation reports could be done.