BEFORE THE UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION
_____________________________________
XXXXX, )
Petitioner, :
v. : INFORMAL DECISION
:
: Appeal No.
90-1391
COLLECTION
DIVISION OF THE :
UTAH STATE TAX COMMISSION, :
: Account
No. XXXXX
Respondent. :
_____________________________________
STATEMENT OF CASE
This
is an appeal to the Utah State Tax Commission requesting a waiver of a penalty
and interest assessment on Petitioner's sales and use tax for the tax year
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
states that the return and payment were mailed by XXXXX. The postage stamp apparently fell off the
envelope and Petitioner did not include a return address since the envelope was
prestamped with the Tax Commission's address.
Petitioner does not recall the date when Petitioner finally received the
letter back from the post office's dead letter file in XXXXX. Petitioner states that upon receiving it
from the XXXXX post office, she immediately mailed it to the Tax Commission. Petitioner has a good past history of timely
filing and payment of taxes.
FINDINGS
Utah
Code Ann. §§59-1-401 and59-1-402 provide that penalties and interest shall be
assessed for late filing and payment of taxes.
Utah Code Ann. §59-1-401(8) provides that the Tax Commission may upon
reasonable cause shown waive or reduce the penalties and interest assessed
under these statutes.
Such
reasonable cause has been shown for waiver of the penalty in this case. The fact that the postage stamp fell off the
envelope was a circumstance beyond Petitioner's control, although it certainly
would have lessened the problems if Petitioner had included a return address on
the envelope. In any case, under the
circumstances as outlined by Petitioner, the return and payment were mailed in
a timely manner and, therefore, penalty should be waived. Interest, however
should not be waived since the state was deprived of the use 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. Waiver of interest is denied. It is so ordered.
DATED
this 12th day of September, 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