BEFORE THE UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION
_____________________________________
XXXXX
Petitioner : FINDINGS OF FACT,
: CONCLUSIONS
OF LAW
v. : AND FINAL DECISION
:
: Appeal No.
89-0642
COLLECTION
DIVISION OF THE :
UTAH STATE TAX COMMISSION :
: Acct No.
XXXXX
Respondent. :
_____________________________________
STATEMENT OF CASE
This
matter came before the Utah State Tax Commission pursuant to the Utah Rules of
Administrative Procedure and the Administrative Procedures Act for formal
adjudicative proceedings on the XXXXX before Joseph G. Linford, Presiding
Officer. Petitioner was represented by
XXXXX and XXXXX. No one representing
the Respondent appeared at the hearing.
After
reviewing the evidence and arguments of the parties and the recommendation of
the Presiding Officer, the Tax Commission hereby makes its:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. The tax in question is sales tax.
2. The period in question is the first three
quarters of XXXXX.
3. In the years previous to the period in
question, sales tax forms were normally sent directly to Petitioner from the
Utah State Tax Commission. For the periods in question, these forms were either
not sent by the Commission or were lost.
4. Petitioners employed an outside financial
services firm to handle their taxes.
When Petitioners would receive tax forms in past years from the Tax
Commission, Petitioners would forward those forms to their accountant at the
financial services firm for processing.
5. For the period in question, since the forms
were never received by the Petitioner, Petitioner made the erroneous assumption
that those forms had been sent directly to its accountant. The accountant, relying upon the practices
of past years, assumed that the forms had been sent to the Petitioner and was
awaiting Petitioners submission of the report forms to the accountant. Because
of this misunderstanding, i.e., both Petitioner and the Petitioner's accountant
believing that the matter was being taken care of by the other party when in
fact it was not, the tax forms were not filed until Petitioner discovered the
error.
6. Based upon these circumstances, Petitioner
requests a waiver of penalties and interest in this case.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Utah
Code Ann. §§59-1-401,59-1-402,59-12-107(19) and59-12-111 (1987 Rep., 1989
Supp.) provide that penalties and interest shall be assessed for the late
payment of sales taxes and the late filing of sales tax returns. Utah Code Ann.
§59-1-401(8) (1987 Rep., 1989 Supp.) provides that upon reasonable cause shown
the Tax Commission may waive or reduce the penalties and interest assessed
under the above statutes. Such
reasonable cause has been shown for the waiver of the penalties in this case
inasmuch as the late filing of the returns was due to a misunderstanding
between Petitioner and its accountant.
Such reasonable cause has not been shown for the waiver of the interest
amounts assessed due to the fact that the state did not have use of the tax
funds involved between the time those taxes should have been paid and the time
that they actually were paid. The state
is therefore entitled to interest on those amounts.
DECISION AND ORDER
Based
upon the foregoing, it is the decision and order of the Utah State Tax
Commission that the penalties but not the interest in this case be waived. Petitioner's request for waiver of penalties
is therefore granted. Petitioner's request for waiver of interest is denied.
DATED
this 1st day of December, 1989.
BY ORDER OF THE UTAH STATE TAX COMMISSION.
R. H. Hansen Roger
O. Tew
Chairman Commissioner
Joe B.
Pacheco G.
Blaine Davis
Commissioner Commissioner