Inland Revenue Department Amendment Act 1986

This commentary item was published in Public Information Bulletin Volume 157, November 1986

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Officers and Employees of Corporate Bodies

Section 2 inserts into the principal Act a new section 47A which provides that an officer or employee of a corporate body who is responsible for furnishing information to the Commissioner commits an offence if he or she fails to do so. The expression "officer" is defined, for the purposes of section 47A, in section 47A(1) as including:

1. a director, or secretary or other statutory officer of the corporate body;
2. a receiver or manager of any property of the corporate body;
3. a liquidator of the corporate body.

Whether or not an officer or employee of a body corporate is responsible for furnishing information on behalf of that body is a question of fact which must be decided on the basis of the facts of each case.

The penalty for this new offence is provided in section 47B(3) of the principal Act.

Penalties for offences

Section 3 gives effect to the Government's decision to increase the maximum penalties for offences against the Inland Revenue Department Act. The section also inserts into the principal Act a new section 47B which consolidates the penalties for all offences against the principal Act. The new penalties are set out in Appendix II of this Bulletin.

A feature of the new penalties is that the maximum penalties are increased for persons who have been convicted of an offence or offences against the principal Act on a previous occasion. It should be noted that the maximum penalty does not increase with each single offence committed. The increase in penalty occurs only on each occasion on which the person is convicted of one or more offences against the principal Act.

Example

On a particular occasion a person is convicted of two separate offences for failure to supply information requested in terms of section 17 of the principal Act. As this is the first conviction the maximum penalties are:

On a later occasion the same person is convicted of two further offences for failure to supply information requested under section 17. As it is the person's second conviction for offences committed against section 17 since 1 July 1986 the maximum penalty for each of the two later offences is $4,000 and/or $100 for each day of default. The maximum penalty for any subsequent conviction will be $6,000 and/or $150 for each day of default.

Section 4 — Consequential Amendments

This section removes from the principal Act all other references to penalties as a consequence of the penalties for offences all being consolidated in the new section 47B.