ANOTHER LAWSUIT IS LOOMING for the Inland Revenue Department.
This time it will be coming from one of the professionals the department has hauled before the court and accused of failing to file income tax returns.
Attorney Francis DePeiza served notice yesterday of the impending suit as a number of professionals reappeared in the District “A” Magistrates’ Court.
DePeiza was representing his sister and fellow attorney Verla DePeiza, who is accused of failing to file income tax returns for four years – 2005 to 2008.
Francis DePeiza told Chief Magistrate Clyde Nicholls he intended to seek judicial review and orders against the Commissioner of Inland Revenue “based on the facts which are before the court”.
“It will soon be filed before the High Court, as early as today [yesterday],” he said.
“And we will be asking for a stay.”
DePeiza revealed that the Barbados identification numbers of Verla DePeiza and another person were so close that the Commissioner of Inland Revenue had inter-changed them and accused his sister of failing to file income tax returns based on the identification number and the earnings of the other person.
The Saturday Sun later learnt that only the last two digits set DePeiza and the man apart, as both were born on the same day and month of the same year.
The matter in the District “A” Magistrates’ Court was adjourned until July 22.
It was in April that the Inland Revenue Department was successfully sued by Dr Euston Maynard.
A High Court judge found that the department had wrongfully assessed his income tax for a year in which he was not in the island, and then filed a certificate for unpaid taxes against his land.
In that judgement, delivered by Justice Olson Alleyne, the commissioner was ordered to pay damages and the legal fees of the doctor after it was found that he had acted improperly and outside the scope of the law, when he filed the certificate in the name of Euston C. Maynard on September 27, 2005, in the amount of $77 055.50.
