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(1) A person who

(a) makes a statement to a tax officer that is false or misleadingin a material particular; or

(b) omits from a statement made to a tax officer, any matter orthing without which the statement is misleading in a materialparticularis liable to a penalty of

(c) one hundred percent of the tax shortfall where the statementwas made without reasonable excuse; or

(d) thirty percent of the tax shortfall in any other case.

(2) Despite subsection (1), the penalty imposed under thissection shall be

(a) cumulatively increased by twenty percent for each subsequentapplication of this section to the person within thelast five years; and

(b) reduced by twenty percent if the person voluntarily disclosesthe error before its discovery by a tax officer or before thenext tax audit of the person, whichever is earlier.

(3) A statement is made to a tax officer when the statement ismade orally, in writing or in any other form to a tax officer acting in theperformance of duties under a tax law and includes a statement made

(a) in a document or information required to be filed under atax law;

(b) in a document furnished to a tax officer otherwise thanunder a tax law;

(c) in answer to a question asked of a person by a tax officer;or

(d) to another person with the knowledge or reasonable expectationthat the statement will be passed on to a tax officer.

(4) A person who contravenes section 11(5), 12(3) or 18(2) istreated as making a false or misleading statement to a tax officer.

(5) A person who, in relation to the importation or exportation of goods or in relation to the trade in services or intangible property or any tax law, mis-states or falseifies a price, quantity, volume, other substantive term of invoice or value for the purpose of tax evasion including manipulating value added taxes, customs duties, income taxes, excise duties, levies or any other form of taxes or revenue collected by the Government is treated as making a false or misleading statement to a tax officer.

(6) Without limiting this section, where a person files a tax returnin which the tax stated as payable is less than the actual tax liability

(a) by a margin of between thirty and fifty percent , the personis treated as making a false or misleading statement to a taxofficer; or

(b) by a margin of fifty one percent or more, the person is treatedas making a false or misleading statement to a tax officerwithout reasonable excuse.

(7) For the purpose of subsection (2) (a), this section applies wherea person is served with a notice of assessment under section 77.

(8) In this section, “tax shortfall” means the underpayment oftax that, in the opinion of the Commissioner-General, may have resultedif the inaccuracy of the statement had gone undetected.