Concealment in return filing sustains penalty where branch sales were omitted despite taxable receipts and prior findings.

Penalty for furnishing a false or inaccurate return was upheld because the dealer omitted branch sales from the returns despite those receipts being taxable and tax having been collected on them. The omission was treated as concealment rather than a bona fide dispute on taxability, since the relevant facts were not disclosed in the return. The distinction drawn was that a mere legal disagreement may not justify penalty where full disclosure is made, but that protection was unavailable here because the sales were excluded altogether. The penal provision therefore applied.

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Issues: Whether penalty for furnishing a false or inaccurate return was justified where the dealer omitted branch sales from the returns on the plea that such sales were not taxable.

Analysis: The dealer had not disclosed the Western Courts sales in the returns at all, though tax had been collected on those sales and earlier appellate orders had already held the receipts taxable. The plea that the omission was based on a legal interpretation was distinguished from cases where all relevant facts were disclosed and only the taxability of an item was disputed. In the circumstances, the omission was treated as concealment and not as a bona fide disclosure of facts with a disputed legal claim.

Conclusion: The penalty was rightly sustained and the objection to the applicability of the penal provision failed.

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