£35,000 TAX FRAUDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21648, 19 May 1932, Page 8

£35,000 TAX FRAUDS

TO PRISON AT SIXTY-FOUR

FALSE RETURNS FOR 19 YEARS..,

A former chairman of his local, council, a J.P:, and chairman of assessment committees; Henry Edward Shilton, uged 64, , a well-known hat manufacturer s agent, who had lived for many years at Shemfield, Essex, was lately sentenced at the Old Bailey to 10 mouths’ imprisonment in the second division '.for frauds relating to his income tax returns. Prosecuting counsel stated that Shilton had carried on business for some years. From 1908 to 1926 the true taxable prohts of the business was £129.000. The profits disclosed on the accounts were £65,500, the remaining £63,500 being concealed. The tax which had been evaded amounted to £35.000. . , While the investigation was proceeding, Shilton paid :f7oolk and In April of last year he paid another £30,000. His accountant. had only the hooks to go _by. and Shilton consistently concealed from the books the amSunt he was drawing from the business and his true He was. however, most methodical in his financial affairs, and he had secret books showing his investments and the true posi U Defending counsel, in an eloquent speech, urged that that Shiltons real vice was that of acquisitiveness and greed. He was a self-made man, who, by immense application, energy, and aptitude, m a highly competitive trade, had_built up a fine and thriving business. He did not spend the money he had made in any vulgar display or m any selfish pursuit He simply put the money away—money which he had fought hard to acquire-and the result was that when the demand from the revenue came it was instant!} a 'ft was not u case of deliberately defrauding the revenue, but of a man succumbing to the temptation o* bolding on to something he had worked hard to get. Shilton had been in the public service for •over a quarter of a century, being chairman of the Billericay Rural District Council, among other things. His war tune work was on a very high plane. . Now, at the age of CL with an invalid wife, he was ruined. He had said his house and moved to a -smaller on®™ another district,'and he had resigned from all his public positions; to mark Ins contrition. His great desire was to try'to undo the wrong he now recognised he had committed. He hoped the judge would think the case could be met by monetarypenalties. ■ . ' Mr Justice Finlay, passing sentence, told Shilton that he had been given repeated opportunities of making disclosure, but he declined to take them. If it were remembered that fraud on the revenue meant fraud on all the other taxpayers of the country, then the mitigation sometimes urged for this crime had little foundation. - , „ , . , ~ , “ It has been urged,” the judge added, " that a pecuniary penalty would be adequate. I wish I could take that view, but I cannot. The interests of public,justice require that a fraud of this sort should he followed by a sentence,"but the sentence is made more lenient by reason oi your age.” , In addition to the sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment, Shilton was ordered to pay the costs of the prosecution,