INCOME FROM BOOKMAKING

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 3

INCOME FROM BOOKMAKING

FAILURE TO SUBMIT RETURNS FINES TOTAL £75 (P.A.) WANGANUI, June 11. Ignorance of his liability to submit correct returns of income received from bookmaking or betting was pleaded in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday by a defendant- seeking leniency. Thomas Stanley Leathern, tobacconist and hairdresser, appeared before Mr J. H. Salmon, S.M., charged with negligently or alternatively with wilfully failing to submit correct returns of income for the years ending March 31, 1942, 1944, and 1945. Four of the informations were withdrawn finally by the Crown, for whom Mr N. R. Bain appeared, and the defendant was fined £25 for negligently failing to submit a return in 1942, and £5O for a similar offence in 1944. Costs amounted to seven guineas, and the defendant was allowed three months in which to pay. "The defendant carried on business as a tobacconist, and also as a bookmaker,” said Mr Bain. "No records were available regarding the profits made by the defendant from bookmaking, but an assessment of his income was made after inspection of his bank passbooks. When the defendant was notified that his books were to be examined by an income-tax inspector, he withdrew £3OOO from the bank the day before the inspector’s visit.” Mr W. R. Brown (counsel for the defendant) : We object to any suggestion that the sum was withdrawn for any "improper purpose. It is not denied that the defendant omitted to submit a return of his income from bookmaking. Mr Brown said that the defendant was under a genuine delusion that his income from bookmaking and betting was not taxable. The Magistrate: The legislation makes no difference between negligent or wilful submission of false returns. The penalty is the «ame. Mr Brown: The whole point of the defence is the state of the defendant’s mind on the subject. The Magistrate: If he was straightforward enough to bank all his winnings, that indicates that he committed the offence negligently. By banking. everything he put himself in the hands of the department. , . , The charges of wilfully submitting false returns were thereupon withdrawn, and the defendant was fined as stated.