BEFORE THE UTAH STATE TAX
COMMISSION
_____________________________________
XXXXX,
Petitioner, :
: ORDER
v. :
COLLECTION
DIVISION OF THE : Appeal No. 90-2067
UTAH STATE TAX COMMISSION, :
: Account
No. XXXXX
Respondent. :
_____________________________________
STATEMENT OF CASE
This
matter came before the Utah State Tax Commission upon a Petition for
Reconsideration, dated XXXXX, filed by the Petitioner as a result of the
Commission's Order of Default, dated XXXXX.
FINDINGS
1. Utah Administrative Rule R861-1A-5(P)
provides that a Petition for Reconsideration "will allege as grounds for
reconsideration either a mistake in law or fact, or the discovery of new
evidence." Under this rule, the
Tax Commission may exercise its discretion in granting or denying a Petition
for Reconsideration.
2. The Petition for Reconsideration states that
the Petitioner forgot to make the call in order to appear for the formal
telephone hearing upon which the Order of Default was issued.
3. Petitioner requested that the penalties on
the late filing and payment of its withholding taxes for the month of XXXXX be
waived. Petitioner bases this on the
fact that prior to XXXXX, Petitioner had been filing its withholding taxes on a
quarterly basis, but beginning in XXXXX Petitioner was switched to a monthly
filing status. Petitioner contests that
it received no notice of the change other than the coupon booklet from the Tax
Commission. This booklet did indicate
that Petitioner was to file monthly.
However, Petitioner, accustomed to filing quarterly, did not notice that
it was now required to file monthly until it came time for Petitioner to
prepare its taxes for the first quarter of XXXXX. The penalty for XXXXX has already been waived because of these
circumstances, and Petitioner feels that the penalty for XXXXX should be waived
because these same circumstances were present for that month as were present
for the month of XXXXX.
4. The Tax Commission finds that since
Petitioner had not received prior notice of the switch to monthly filing
status, the penalty for the month of XXXXX should be waived. Interest, however, should not be waived
because the state was deprived of the use of the tax funds for a period of time
through no fault of its own and should be compensated for that loss of use.
DECISION AND ORDER
Based
upon the foregoing, it is the decision and order of the Utah State Tax
Commission that the Petition for Reconsideration is granted to the extent that
the penalty for the month of XXXXX is waived and interest shall be adjusted to
account for the waiver of the penalty.
It is so ordered.
DATED
this 13 day of March, 1991.
BY ORDER OF THE UTAH STATE TAX COMMISSION.
R. H. Hansen Roger
O. Tew
Chairman Commissioner
ABSENT
Joe B.
Pacheco G.
Blaine Davis
Commissioner Commissioner