SALES TAX EVASIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21470, 19 April 1933, Page 14

SALES TAX EVASIONS

OVER £2OOO IN FINES ALLEGED SYSTEMATIC FRAUD Twontv-six charges of having evaded payment of sales tax under the Sales Tax Assessment Act were admitted in the Police Court at Perth, Western Australia, recently. Fourteen charges were against Sara and Cook, Limited, a wholesale firm dealing in dairy produce and general grocery lines, and 12 against John William Stephan, manager of the firm. A minimum fine of £'so, plus three times the tax evaded, was imposed in each case. This means that £2096 lis 3d and 50 guineas costs will have to bo paid. The firm will he liable for Stephan's lines, as he is a public officer under tho Act. Counsel for tho Taxation Department stated that tho firm had an annual turnover of approximately £200,000. Nine different methods of defrauding tho department were used, the principal ono being to cancel invoices for taxable lines, and to substitute invoices for tho samo accounts on non-taxable goods. The number of invoices deliberately and fraudulently altered was 308. Tho total taxable sales intentionally omitted from the returns was 1064, and tax subject to charges, although not all tho company would have to pay, was £265 lOs sd. In its investigations, added counsel, tho department had discovered goods to a further value of £7lO 3s 7d which were wrongly returned as exempted goods. The company had been given the benefit of doubt in respect of a large number of these, owing to tho possibility of clerical errors, and the duty on this amount had not been included in tho present charges, but it would have to be paid.