Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-03-18 | Page 3 | Ruling Made on Overdue Taxes

HE TAXES WASHINGTON, March 17-. Persons ,who neglected to pay the first installment 'of income taxes last Saturday have lost the installment payment privilege and must now pay their entire tax upon demand de-mand of a revenue collector. To avoid tho penalty of IT. per cent in adidtion to the regula r tax, persons who failed to file re I urns Sri t urda y may now submit belated returns with a sworn statement of the reason for delinquency. Without this, the penalty will be imposed. im-posed. These Dolicics, announced today by Interna In-terna Revenue Commissioner Roper, are intended to grant a. degree of leniency to those who for some legitimate reason failed to file their returns when they were due. By law. however, the Installment Install-ment payment privilege- is removed from all failing to make payments on time, and the internal revenue bureau has no authority au-thority to change this provision. A revenue bureau statement iu explanation follows: "Revenue collectors wil accept all delinquent de-linquent returns presented after March o and deposit any payment made therewith. Under law, failure to make first payment by March 15 automatically makes Uk whole tux paya blc immediately. Ta-payers Ta-payers filing income returns subsequent to March lo, therefore, must pay in full, but If the taxpayer submits a partial pav-ment pav-ment he will be notified of the balance due later in the regular procedure of listing list-ing and sending notices, in reference to the penalty of 2 per cent additional tax for all delinquents the policy will be to proceed systematically in accordance with the regulations permitting the taxpayer if he desires to file an affidavit within ten days explaining the cause ""of delinquency." delin-quency." The statement was taken to indicate that persons who paid their taxes later than Saturday may have as much as sixty days in which to pay the remaining three-quarters. Revenue collectors have been instructed to use their own discretion In determining what constitutes a reasonable cause for failure to make returns or payments on time. In some cities, accord ing to reports reaching Commissioner. Roper today, collectors' col-lectors' offices were unable to accommodate accommo-date the last-hour rush of applicants, and these returned today to file returns iu person and make payment y. In some of these cases it is possible that the requirements require-ments that they pay all installments on demand may not be enforced. Reports today showed that hundreds of thousands of small taxpayers paid their entire taxes Saturday and failed to take advantage of the installment privilege.