£332 IN FINES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20110, 2 December 1939, Page 6

£332 IN FINES

INCOME TAX EVADED FATHER AND SON 18 BREACHES ALLEGED PERIOD OF FOUR YEARS (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. A total of 18 charges of breaches of revenue regulations, four being joint charges, were admitted by a father and son, partners in the Popular Pie Company, when they appeared in the Police Court yesterday afternoon. James Nieper was fined a total of £33 and costs, while his son, James Robert Nieper, was fined a total of £299 and costs. Counsel for Nieper junior said that for the past three .years Nieper, senior had been in ill-health and 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 senior said it was ignorance of the fact that he had a taxable income, plus ill-health, th’at had resulted 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. C.‘R. OrrWalker, SJM. "However, I am not prepared to believe that he was justified in not making a return of income.

“In the case of the son, the circumstances are much more serious, for it must have occurred to him that he had duties to the Government and the revenui to discharge. However, it is to his credit that he made no false returns, but it is a serious matter to evade payment of income tax. From the public point o' 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. Mr. Orr-Walker said that 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 thought fit.