HEAVY FINE IMPOSED ON INVERCARGILL TRADER FOR INCOME TAX EVASION

Evening Star, Issue 26137, 26 June 1947, Page 11

HEAVY FINE IMPOSED ON INVERCARGILL TRADER FOR INCOME TAX EVASION

<P.A.) INVERCARGILL, June 25. Fines totalling £4OO were imposed on Albert Coster in the Magistrate’s Court to-day on charges of making false returns of income and giving false information and attempting to mislead the Commissioner of Taxes in relation to income derived by him. Three charges of making false returns related to the years ended March 31, 1943, 1944, and 1945. There was one charge of giving false information and one of attempting to mislead. The defendant pleaded guilty. Mr J. R. Mills, who appeared for the defendant, said that Coster was the proprietor of the only pasteurised milk plant in Southland, and traded under the name of the Invercargill Milk Supply. He had a large business. Dealing with the charges of making false returns, counsel said that for the year ended March 31, 1943, the defendant returned an income of £704, but the actual income was assessed at £1,506. In the following year he returned £1,333, and was assessed at £2,208, and in 1945 he returned £732 and was assessed at £2,076. Evasion of income tax and social security and national security tax involved a total of £1,336. The defendant’s 'accounts were kept by a firm of accountants, said counsel, but the defendant did not reveal to them that lie had a second bank account in which he deposited, between March and August, 1945, a sum of £2,392 in notes. Referring to the .charge of _ giving false information, Mr Mills said that when the defendant was asked about the second account, he said the amount banked had been lent to him by a friend whose Identity he would not disclose. Subsequently the true position was given to the department by the defendant’s accountant. “ Every taxpayer is at liberty to take proper legal steps■ to avoid having to pay unnecessary income tax, but there is a limit to which a taxpayer can go, and there are some things he cannot do,” said '.the magistrate, Mr R. C. Abernethy, giving his decision. He added that it was a bad case, arid the court must treat it as a very serious offence. James Short, who" pleaded guilty to failing to furnish returns of income for the years 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946, was fined £2O on each or the four charges.