PAYMENT OF TAXES EVADED

Southland Times, Issue 23990, 4 December 1939, Page 8

PAYMENT OF TAXES EVADED

CHARGES AGAINST FATHER - AND SON 0

(United Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 2.

Eighteen charges of breaches' of the revenue regulations, four being joint charges, were admitted by a father and son, partners in a popular pie company, when they appeared in the Magistrate’s Court. James Nieper was fined a total of £33 and costs, and his son, James Robert Nieper, was fined a total of £299 and costs. Counsel for Nieper, jun., said that for the past three years Nieper, sen., had been in ill-health, and had spent a whole year in hospital. The business had been difficult to handle, and it was because of this that no returns had been made. There was no suggestion of dishonesty, and the offences were purely the result of pressure of work. Counsel for Nieper, sen., said it was ignorance of the fact that he had taxable income, plus ill-health, that re-, suited in the offences being committed. “The father is elderly, and has been ill for a long time, and this calls for leniency for him,” said Mr Orr Walker, S.M. “However, I am not prepared to believe he was justified in not making a return of income. In the case of the son, circumstances are much more serious, for it must have occurred to him that he had duties to the Government to discharge. However, it is to his credit that he made no false returns, but it is a serious matter to evade the payment of income tax. From a public point of view the Court has to show that persons cannot break the laws with impunity.” The taxation that should have been paid by the partnership over four years amounted to a total of £238, and Mr Orr Walker said the Income Tax Commissioner would have power to collect the tax and impose a penal rate up to three times the amount due if he thovgHt fit.