BEFORE THE UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION
_____________________________________
XXXXX )
:
Petitioners, ) FINDINGS OF FACT,
: CONCLUSIONS
OF LAW
v. ) AND FINAL DECISION
:
) Appeal No.
89-0302
COLLECTION
DIVISION OF THE :
UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION )
: Account
No. XXXXX
Respondent. )
_____________________________________
STATEMENT OF CASE
This
matter came before the Utah State Tax Commission pursuant to the Utah
Administrative Procedures Act for a formal hearing on XXXXX, before Joseph G. Linford,
Presiding Officer. Petitioner, XXXXX,
was present at the hearing. No one
representing the Respondent appeared.
After
reviewing the evidence and arguments of the parties in the record and the
recommendation of the presiding officer, the Tax Commission hereby makes its:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. The tax in question is individual income
tax.
2. The period in question is the tax year
XXXXX.
3. On XXXXX, Petitioners received a statement of
delinquent taxes from the Tax Commission for the tax year XXXXX. Prior to this Petitioners had no knowledge
that they had not fully paid all of their taxes for XXXXX. Evidently in that
year they had not included as a taxable amount their earnings from "tips
not recorded".
4. Petitioners now request a waiver and refund
of both the tax and the interest amounts in this case, which have been fully
paid by Petitioner. No penalty has been
assessed. In the alternative, the
Petitioners request at least a portion of the interest amount be waived in view
of the fact that it took the State ten (10) years to contact the Petitioners
concerning this liability.
5. Tax Commission records show five different
addresses for Petitioners since the tax year XXXXX. Evidently, Petitioners have changed their residence a number of
times, often to places outside Utah.
Under these circumstances, it is apparent that notices from the Tax
Commission may have not been able to reach Petitioner until XXXXX.
6. This case was discovered and acted upon by
the Commission much earlier than XXXXX.
After being notified of the problem by the Internal Revenue Service, the
Tax Commission sent the first billing notice to Petitioners on XXXXX. On XXXXX, a Notice and Demand for Payment of
Taxes was sent. On May 24, 1983, a
Notice of Warrant was mailed. There is
no record of a response to any of these notices.
7. Following this, there was a period of
inactivity as to this account. Nothing
further was sent to Petitioners until XXXXX, when a monthly billing notice was
mailed. There was no response to this
notice. For more than a year after
this, nothing further was done. On
XXXXX, the Tax Commission began sending regular monthly billing notices to
Petitioners. One of these, dated XXXXX,
reached Petitioners.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. Utah Code Ann. §59-1-401 and59-1-402 provide
that penalties and interest shall be imposed upon late payment and filing of
taxes.
2. Utah Code Ann. §59-1-401(8) provides that
the Tax Commission may upon reasonable cause shown, waive or reduce penalties
and interest assessed under the above statutes.
3. The Tax Commission has no authority under
the law to waive tax assessments.
Therefore, Petitioners' request for waiver of the actual tax amount must
be denied.
4. Reasonable cause for waiver of the interest
assessment has been shown. Petitioners
should not be responsible for such an inordinate amount of time which it took
the Tax Commission to notify them of this problem. Although the Commission did act initially upon this case in a
timely manner, subsequent long periods of Commission inactivity doubtless added
to the problem.
DECISION AND ORDER
Based
upon the foregoing, it is the decision and order of the Utah State Tax
Commission that Petitioners' request for waiver of the tax amount is denied and
waiver of interest is granted.
DATED
this 3rd day of May, 1990.
BY ORDER OF THE UTAH STATE TAX COMMISSION.
R. H. Hansen Roger
O. Tew
Chairman Commissioner
Joe B.
Pacheco G.
Blaine Davis
Commissioner Commissioner