National
Malema accuses SARS of misrepresenting reasons for withdrawing sequestration case─── 05:28 Wed, 03 Jun 2015
Pretoria - Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema on Tuesday accused the South African Revenue Service of lying about the reasons for withdrawing an application to have a provisional sequestration against him made final.
“It is with alarm and concern that I read the media statement of SARS… (it) is wrong and misleading in a number of respects,” Malema said.
As it walked away from the legal battle that risked Malema losing his seat in Parliament on Monday, SARS said it was doing so mainly because it had other legal instruments at its disposal to recover taxes owed by the politician.
Furthermore, it said, the Julius Sello Malema Trust had started complying with its tax obligations and had partially paid its outstanding tax debt, which had been one of the key reasons for seeking sequestration.
Finally, it claimed that Malema had withdrawn an application for interdictory relief.
“A further consideration by SARS was that Mr Malema withdrew his application for the declaratory and interdictory relief.
This meant that SARS was not bound by the previous compromise agreement and as such will be able to take steps to recover outstanding taxes.”
However, Malema said this was not true as there had been no retreat from his side.
“I did not approach SARS to settle and I did not withdraw my application because I lost faith in it, as is suggested in the SARS media statement.”
Instead, Malema said, he had paid all his outstanding debt to SARS under a deal reached with the revenue service, and therefore its bid to force his final sequestration was doomed.
“I paid each and every cent of the compromised debt. The effect of this was that I owed nothing relating to the 2005 to 2011 tax years and that SARS could not sequestrate my estate.”
ANA
