BEFORE THE UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION
_____________________________
XXXXX, )
:
Petitioner, )
: INFORMAL
DECISION
v. )
:
COLLECTION
DIVISION OF THE ) Appeal No. 90-0017
UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION, :
) Account
No. XXXXX
Respondent. :
_____________________________________
STATEMENT OF CASE
This
is an appeal to the Utah State Tax Commission requesting waiver of a penalty
and interest assessment on Petitioner's income tax liability for XXXXX. Pursuant to Utah Code Ann. §63-46b-5(1)(b,j)
no hearing was held. A review of
Petitioner's file served as the evidentiary basis for this decision.
Petitioner
filed her income tax return for XXXXX on XXXXX, and also paid the tax amount at
that time. Petitioner and her husband
had filed jointly for XXXXX. She states
that she had signed the tax returns and assumed that he had subsequently filed
them in time. Petitioner is now
divorced from her husband. She did not
discover that he had not filed the returns until XXXXX, and when she discovered
this she paid the delinquent taxes attributable to her own individual income.
FINDINGS
Utah
Code Ann. §§59-1-401 and 59-1-402 provide that penalty and interest shall be
assessed for the late filing and payment of taxes. Utah Code Ann. §59-1-401(8) provides that upon reasonable cause
shown, the Tax Commission may waive or reduce penalty or interest assessed
under the above statutes.
Such
reasonable cause has been shown for waiver of the penalty in this case because
the fault here is in Petitioner's ex-husband's failure to file the returns and
is not the fault of the Petitioner.
Interest, however, should not be waived because the state has been
deprived of the tax funds in question for a period of time and should be
compensated for that loss of use.
DECISION AND ORDER
Based
upon the foregoing facts, it is the decision and order of the Utah State Tax
Commission that Petitioner's request for waiver of penalty is granted and
Petitioner's request for waiver of interest is denied. Interest shall be recalculated to take into
account the waiver of the penalty.
DATED
this 8 day of August, 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