CENSURE MOTION LOST

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 311, 23 March 1928, Page 9

CENSURE MOTION LOST

TAXATION EVASION CASE GOVERNMENT ASSAILED By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. Reed. 9.5 a.m. CANBERRA, To-da.v. Mr. Frank Brennan’s motion, on behalf of the Labour Party, to censure the Government in connection with the Abrahams taxation evasion case, was lost by 38 votes to 15, on a party division. The motion read: “That the action of the Government in participating in improper and unprincipled bargaining with self-confessed malefactors is repugnant to right practice, and not in harmony with the correct and settled practice of the Government in the administration of criminal law.” The Prime Minister, Mr. Bruc*. regarded It so seriously that he moved to suspend the standing orders to allow the discussion to proceed immediately.—A. and N.Z. *

An action was brought in the High Court at Melbourne on March 2 in respect of alleged shortages in income tax paid by three brothers named Abrahams. The commissioner claimed that the evasions of tax amounted to £10,221 in 1924, and £9,543 in 1925. In 1926 at was £7,792. The commissioner claimed the penalty of £SOO provided by law, and treble the amount of tax payable in each case, which amounted to £84,172. The brother, Louis Abrahams, he claimed, owed £76,631. Mr. Justice Starke refused to make an order. The commissioner had stated that defendants had arranged to pay £500,000 in settlement. In his judgment, Mr. Justice Starke said the avowed purpose of the proceedings was to use a judgment of the court, for the purpn.ee of executing and enforcing an arrangement with defendants, and so long as that arrangement and purpose subsisted he was not prepared to give any judement which would lend the aid of the court to any such purpose.