Increase urged in tax fines
AN increase in the fine for people failing to hand in tax returns should be considered, Mr Jenney said.
The $5,000 fine stipulated in Section 80 of the Inland Revenue Ordinance had not been revised since December 1984, he said.
As at June this year, the average court fines ranged from $1,000 to $1,700 for defaulters on tax returns.
Mr Jenney said the number of prosecutions for persistent defaulters of salaries and property tax returns in 1993-94 was small. Only one per cent of the 5,122 salary tax return defaulters were prosecuted and none of the 2,815 the property tax return defaulters.
But the Commissioner for Inland Revenue, Anthony Au Yeung Fu, said that while there was room for taking more cases to court, the department was subject to resource constraints.
The cost of preparing a case might outweigh the amount of fine eventually awarded by the court.
The finance branch had recently asked the department to review the fines and penalties.
