USED car dealership Von’s Motor and Company limited, which, along with its Director Loraine Von Strolley, pleaded guilty to breaches of the Income Tax Act before the Sutton Street Revenue Court in March, was in late April slapped with a $1-million fine for those infractions.

The dealership found itself in hot water after claims that it did no business in 2018 and 2019 were proven false by Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) through its Intelligence, Investigation and Enforcement and Legal Unit which found that it collected millions from the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) in those years.

In late March Von Strolley, a director and principal officer of the company, pleaded guilty to four counts of making a false declaration, a breach of Section 99 (1) of the Income Tax Act. The company and its director were jointly charged with two counts each.

An attorney for the TAJ, in outlining the allegations, said the car company had filed “nil for gross income” for the years 2018 and 2019.

“They filed nil for gross income, and what that means is that no trading took place those years. But our investigations revealed that the company conducted business with the Jamaica Urban Transit Corporation (JUTC) valued at $25.873 million in 2018, and worse in 2019 the JUTC paid over $64.6 million [to Von’s]. As a consequence the company and its principal officer are before you for breaches of Section 99 of the Income Tax Act, making a false declaration,” attorney Julaine Manderson told the court at the time.

An attorney for the company, in attempting to explain why the incorrect information was filed, said the then accountant for the company had fallen ill, making it difficult for the financial records for those years to be accessed. He said the company’s new accountant was unable to get those records and so filed the returns as “nil”.

Reappearing before Judge Christine McNeil at the end of April the attorney entreated Judge McNeil for leniency, arguing that the company has been operating in good faith since 2008; with only two years of assessment in delinquency.

Counsel for the TAJ, however, countered that argument, revealing that investigations throughout the years have uncovered several infractions of late submission or non-submission of income tax returns by the dealership.

Judge McNeil, in ruling on the matter, fined the company $500,000 and $600,000 for making false statements on its 2018 and 2019 returns.

All individual charges against Von Strolley were dropped.

Under the Income Tax Act, “any person who, for the purpose of obtaining any allowance, reduction, rebate or repayment in respect of income tax either for himself or for any other person, or who in any return, statement, declaration, form or particulars delivered under this Act, knowingly makes any false statement or false representation, commits an offence, shall be liable, in the case of a first offence, to a fine not exceeding $2 million, and, in default of payment thereof, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year”.