‘CUT’ INCOME TAX RETURNS: SOME PUBLIC SERVANTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1949, Page 3

‘CUT’ INCOME TAX RETURNS: SOME PUBLIC SERVANTS

WELLINGTON, This Day (0.C.).-— A reference to the under-statement of income in annual returns submitted by departmental officers to the Land and Income Tax Department, is made in the'Auditor-General’s report, which was presented to the House of Representatives today. The report stated that departments, like other employers, made annual returns of the sums paid to each employee. The Railways Department, it said, kept special cards in its district offices to record individual payments. These were test-checked, periodically, by that department’s inspecting officers. < 1 , Last year, when a more exhaustive check was made, it was found ■ that some items entered on a fexy cards had, later, been reduced, or were deleted altogether. As a result the remuneration of the officers concerned was understated-, on the income tax returns by varying amounts—in one case, by £149. A disturbing feature was that two large understatements related to officers who wrote up their own cards. In another instance, the salary of an officer controlling the district staff was considerably understated, although he did not' enter up a card. In furnishing their personal returns, ..the officers ’concerned acted on information supplied by their department, but it might have been expected that, where earnings were understated to any great extent, they would have been aware of the difference. The report said that information on the two worst cases was submitted to the police, which department advised in one case that “the circumstances would hardly warrant a prosecution,” and in the other that “no evidence has come to light upon which the police could take action.” The Railways Department had taken action to see that similar discrepancies would not occur again.