Parish may enlist state help with unpaid sales taxes

The monthly comparison of taxes for March showed less red ink than the February collections, but the total collections figure remained in the red.
During the monthly meeting of the Evangeline Parish Tax Commission on Wednesday, April 16, commissioners discussed a recent development involving the state’s joint anti-tax fraud initiative that began in March 2013 that has resulted in more than a dozen arrests.
Mike Veillon, the parish tax commission administrator, gave the commissioners an article from Tax Topics, an online news service of the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR), under the headline, “Alexandria business owner arrested for tax fraud.”
The owner of Airbrush LA, Linda Gayle Pettit, was charged earlier this month with two counts of felony fraud by LDR, in a joint investigation with the Louisiana Department of Justice.
She was arrested at her business, in the Alexandria Mal. Her charges include failure to remit $32,439 in sales taxes in Rapides Paish and $17,376 to the state.
The tax commissioners have discussed amounts in the same range that are owed to Evangeline Parish and have discussed ways of collecting those amounts. The commission’s consulting attorney, Greg Vidrine, was asked to look into the possibility of addressing this parish’s problem with late sales tax payments in a similar manner.
Louisiana Secretary of Revenue Tim Barfield is quoted in the LDR article as saying, “We are seeing great results from our efforts to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of tax fraud. Fraud harms everyone, and we appreciate the opportunity to work with the Attorney General’s office and local authorities on this statewide anti-fraud initiative.”